


Endure and Survive

by Chyeahlex16



Category: The Last of Us, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura and Lance are Siblings, Allura as Tommy, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, BAMF Keith (Voltron), BAMF Lance (Voltron), BAMF Pidge | Katie Holt, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Carmela as Sarah, Character Death, Coran as Bill, F/F, F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), Heavy Angst, Henry as Hunk, Hira as Marlene, Iverson as Robert, Lance as Joel, Lance loves endearments, Lesbian Pidge | Katie Holt, Lotor as David, M/M, Matt as Riley, Nyma as Maria, OC Lance's sister, Pidge as Ellie, Plaxum as Tess, Shay as Sam, Slow To Update, The Last of Us AU, WILL BE COMPLETED, Which isn't really brought up but it's a part of her character so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:27:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chyeahlex16/pseuds/Chyeahlex16
Summary: The Last of Us AU, based on the video game by Naughty Dog.Fifteen years after the world went to shit thanks to an outbreak of a mutant cordyceps fungus, Lance thought he'd seen it all. Zombies, marauders, military upset, rebellion-everything. But when unforeseen circumstances  lead him to traveling across the country with a gorgeous ex-murderer and a sassy teenage girl to fulfill a promise to a friend, he quickly learns that he has seen absolutely nothing.  In a tale of loss, love, tough choices, and brutal reality, follow our beloved characters as they buckle up for the ride of their lives.





	1. The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so here's a thing I shouldn't be doing but couldn't help doing anyway! For those of you that know the story, y'all already know, but to those who don't, I'm going to try to keep these characters as true to their canon personalities as possible, but since they're kinda filling in the roles of characters in the game, they might be OOC at times. This universe is a very dark and gritty reality where death is a huge possibility at any possible moment, so they can't be very trusting or sunshine and rainbows all the time like they might otherwise be. So, buckle in for that lol like I said in the summary, it's gonna be a wild ride (if this chapter is of any indication). 
> 
> Enjoy, and please leave a comment if you liked it!

The TV buzzed lowly in the back of Carmela’s mind, keeping her in the limbo between sleep and wakefulness. She lay nestled on her family’s couch in the living room, a thin blanket thrown over her as she blearily blinked her eyes open, the colors flashing in an unfocused blur on the TV screen. All was still for a moment, peaceful.

And then suddenly the front door was opening, her older brother’s loud voice drowning out the silence and filling the living room. Any other time it would’ve irritated her, but the silence had been quite disturbing as of late. A heavy reminder of the family members that should’ve been there but weren’t, residing in the hospital instead. Lance’s noise was a welcome comfort, but she wouldn’t admit it.

“Allura,” he said in a chastising voice, dropping his backpack off his shoulder and closing the door behind him. “I know you’re crazy in love with your girlfriend and that I probably interrupted a makeout session you’d much rather go back to, but listen--have you checked on our family members in the hospital like you were supposed to?”

Silence as their sister responded. Then: “Oh my god, Allura! Come on, you were supposed to check on them _hours_ ago, how do you just _forget?_ Our parents and baby brother are in the _hospital_ \--Yes, _please_ , go check on them now! Oh my god, I _know_ I’m not Dad, but if you would just _listen_ , I wouldn’t have to--” Carmela watched her brother snap his mouth shut and sigh, shoulders tense before he let them relax and softened his voice. “Fine. Fine. I’ll check in with you later. I’m sorry for yelling. Yeah. Be safe. Bye.”

With another sigh, he tossed his phone onto the small table by the door and turned, finally catching sight of Carmela on the couch watching him silently. He gave her a tired smile, running a hand through his hair before coming over to the couch and nudging her feet to make room for him to plop his body down next to her. He seemed to sink into the couch like the weight of the world held him down; Carmela felt a twinge in her heart for him. He was so stressed out, especially with the admittance of their parents and brother to the hospital the day before. _He’s so stressed out he completely forgot,_ she thought to herself.

“Fun day, I take it?” She quipped, bundling herself up to burrow into his side. His arm came down around her, his cheek pressing against her hair.

“Something like that,” he sighed. “And our wonderful big sister didn’t exactly help. I was hoping at least _one_ thing would be taken care of.”

She nudged his ribs gently. “You know how she gets. No excuse, but ya know.”

He huffed air out of his nose, a tired sound. _Tired. Everything about him is tired…_ “What are you still doing up?”

She jerked away, gasping in a burst of fear. “Oh crud, what time is it?!” She glanced at the clock above the couch on the wall and let out a sigh of relief. _Only eleven-thirty._

“Way past your bedtime, _chiquitita_ ,” Lance chided, ruffling her hair as he watched her reach under the couch in slight confusion.

“But it’s still today!” She sing-songed, grinning triumphantly when she came up with whatever she was looking for.

“ _Chiquitita,_ please, I don’t have the energy for any shenanigans today,” he started, but stopped when she held out her hand to him.

A small cardboard box lay in her palm, and she looked at him with a small grin on her face. “Here.”

He frowned, taking the box slowly and looking down at it. “What’s this?”

“Your birthday present, duh. Happy birthday, _hermano._ ” She watched in sadness and delight as his face went from confusion to understanding as he finally remembered that today was his birthday, the _O_ shape of his mouth slipping away as he looked back up at her with eyes slightly shinier than they were before.

“Holy shit,” he said, a slight crease forming between his brows as everything probably caught up to him. He raised a hand to his mouth as the curse left his lips, pointing a finger at Carmela. “You didn’t just hear that. But wow--thank you, Carmela. I didn’t even remember, honestly, everything has just been--so much.”

She gave him an understanding smile, accepting the hug he offered by leaping into his open arms. “Well, open it!”

He did so with a chuckle at her impatience, lifting the small object out of the box. A hand-woven bracelet came up in his fingers, threads of three different colors woven together.

“I made it myself,” she said softly. “And I did it with Bi-Flag colors, ya know--for you.”

His eyes were definitely shinier now. He gripped her harder in his arms, and for his sake--because she knew he hated to cry in front of others--she pretended not to hear his sniffs and ignored the quick swipes under his eyes with his other hand. “Thank you, _nena_ ,” he said sincerely. “Thank you so much.”

He held his wrist out to her wordlessly, and she tried the ends snuggly in a tight knot so it wouldn’t slip off or come undone. She slid down and laid her head on his lap, turning her attention to the show on the TV screen, the sleepiness already coming back to her.

“We ought to go to bed, _nena_ ,” he murmured, shoving her shoulder gently.

“ _Or,_ ” she drawled, “We could stay up a little longer and mama and papa won’t have to hear that you swore in front of little twelve-year-old me.”

He huffed a laugh, this one more genuine that the last, and relaxed against the couch cushions, hand carding his fingers through her soft brown hair. “Alright, you win,” he said. “One more hour and then we go up.”

She was out in ten minutes. He poked her cheek a few times to make sure before hefting her into his arms and carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom. He laid her down on her bed and placed the throw over her body, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear out of her face. “Goodnight, _chiquitita,_ ” he said softly, and left her to sleep.

He slowly slumped down the stairs, his sister and their parents and brother in the hospital on his mind, when suddenly their neighbor’s dog started barking. Normally that wasn’t out of the ordinary; the German Shepherd always found something to bark about. But there was a degree of fear in those barks, a franticness that immediately caught Lance’s attention. _Something’s_ _wrong_ , that feeling in his gut whispered. It was the same feeling he’d been feeling all day, making him paranoid and ready for the day to just be _over_. But although it was a new day according to the clock, it seemed that yesterday’s tensions were leaking into this one.

He briefly considered ignoring it, as his neighbor’s cars were in the driveway when his coworker dropped him off home from work, but just then a piercing scream broke through the otherwise silent night, sending Lance’s heart into his throat and his feet pounding on the ground as he ran out the side door and hopped the fence to the neighbor’s yard.

He was in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans, no weapons, no phone to call for help--but nothing would’ve prepared him for what waited inside that house.

 

The ringing of the landline phone woke Carmela up for the second time that night, and she blearily staggered out of bed into the hallway to answer if off the table in the hallway. “Hello?” She yawned, rubbing at her eye.

“Carmela,” Allura’s voice answered, full of panic and fear. That jolted Carmela wide awake instantly, concern and alarm flooding her entire being.

“Allura?” She said, checking the time on the receiver. _2:23 AM._ “What the--where are you? Why aren’t you home? What’s going on--?”

“Listen, baby, I need you to get Lance on the phone,” Allura rushed out, sounding almost out of breath.

“What? Are you okay?”

“Carmela, I need you to get Lance,” she cut Carmela off from asking more questions, voice harsh through the layers of urgency. “There’s something going on, I--”

The line went dead, incessant beeps replacing her sister’s voice. Fear trickled in her veins, chilling down her spine. “Allura?” No answer. With a slightly shaking hand, she put the phone back on the receiver and let out a breath. _Find Lance. Find Lance._

If Allura had called the landline, that meant he wasn’t answering his phone. Which meant that for some reason, he wasn’t in the house.

“Lance? You in here?” Carmela’s heart pounded faster in her chest as she walked down the hall to his room, opening the cracked door slightly. The TV was off, but she could hear the one downstairs still on, the voice of a female news reporter drifting up to her as she left Lance’s room and climbed downstairs.

_“There seems to be a nationwide panic over this pandemic. We’ve received reports that victims afflicted with the infection show signs of increased aggression and--”_

_“We need to move everyone nearby!”_ A voice interrupted the reporter, and Carmela reached the living room just in time to see a fireman coming towards the woman and trying to move her and her crew away. _That’s nearby,_ Carmela thought, recognizing the gas station behind them. “ _There’s a gas leak.”_

_“There’s some commotion coming from behi-”_

_“Get out of here! Lady, get the hell outta here right-”_

Suddenly, a commotion came from outside, scaring a small scream out of her. Carmela looked out the window just in time to see a bright explosion, a mushroom cloud of smoke rising in the fire’s wake. The TV screen was white static, the news no longer broadcasting. _They’re dead,_ she thought in horror, stumbling away from the screen hastily. _Those people are dead. What in the world is going on?_

“Lance!” She searched for him everywhere, checking the kitchen and the dining room to no avail, only stopping when she heard the familiar buzzing noise of his phone coming from the front door. She grabbed his phone quickly, scanning the notifications.

_7 Missed calls from: Allura_

_16 messages from: Allura_

She read the most recent messages, her feet already walking her back through the house to keep searching.

_**2:28 AM:** Where are you???? _

_**2:32 AM** : Call me please!!!! _

_**2:39 AM** : OMW be ready to go _

“Lance?” She called again, reaching their father’s study and looking around. The neighbor’s dog’s barking was loudest here, closest to their connected backyards, but it had been background noise the whole time she was searching for Lance. The second it cut off with a strangled cry, her whole body felt like someone had poured a bucket of ice water over her head. She stepped away from the sliding glass door, breath not coming to her lungs fast enough. Fear gripped her heart and thrummed in her veins, adrenaline sending her pulse wild.

Before she could do anything, the sliding door slid open, and in came Lance, panting with fear and covered in what looked like splatters of blood. He ran to their father’s desk, rummaging through his drawers in search of something, movements frantic. Her eyes were blown wide in shock at the sight of her brother in this state. _What is happening?_

“There you are,” she said, running towards him. He looked up at her, the panic clear in his eyes. He held a hand up, urging her to keep her distance.

“Carmela,” he grunted, panting. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, voice trembling slightly. She slowed her steps, coming closer to him where he stood by the window.

“Has anyone come in here?”

The more he asked questions, the bigger her fear grew. She had no answers to her own questions, no answers for the blood on her brother’s clothes, or the fear in his eyes. “No. Who would come in here?”

“Don’t go near the doors,” he said, finally noticing her proximity to him. He waved her back. “Just… Just stand back there, okay?”

“Lance,” she said, eyes darting to the glass door. “You’re kinda freaking me out. Please, tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s the neighbors,” he said, finally coming up with something from the drawers. He flicked on the desk light as he talked. “Something isn’t right with them, I--I think they’re sick.”

Confusion flooded through her once again. “What do you mean, sick? What kind of sick?”

Her answer came in the form of their neighbor Jimmy Cooper throwing his body at their glass window. She bit back a scream as she scrambled away from the door, moving behind Lance, who had leapt across the furniture to put himself between her and the door.

“Shit,” he cursed, clicking the object in his hand. Carmela finally caught sight of it; their father’s pistol, loaded and aimed low towards the door and their neighbor. Her head spun, unable to comprehend everything that was going on. “Mr. Cooper!”

“Lance?” Carmela cried, breath coming in short gasps. Adrenaline tightened her muscles, fight or flight reaction kicking in as she followed Lance’s instructions to stay behind her.

“ _Nena,_ come here, stay behind me,” he said, and she gripped the back of his shirt in her fists, willing the trembles to leave. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” The pounding on the glass continued, cracks spiraling from the impact. That was more strength than their skinny middle-aged neighbor had just yesterday, when he was complaining about how much his body ached and how old he seemed to be getting. “Mr. Cooper, just stay back!”

The glass shattered, Mr. Cooper’s body landing on the ground among the shards on the study’s floor, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He let out odd growls and snarls, noises Carmela had never heard before, and picked himself up off the ground, eyes trained on her and her brother.

“Mr. Cooper, please, I’m warning you! Stay back! I don’t wanna do this! Don’t!”

The gunshot rang loudly in her ears as she watched the bloodied form of her neighbor crumple to the ground, small convulsions wracking his body before he finally stilled. The majority of the blood wasn’t his, Carmela could clearly see; it was all over his mouth and hands. Her vision blurred with tears and her whole body trembled, breaths shallow and shuddering in her lungs.

Lance pushed her back to the kitchen, heaving breaths of his own, placing hands on her shoulders and leaning down to look her in the eye. She could see the fear in them too, mirroring her own, and she found comfort in the familiar warmth of his hands on her shoulders. They grounded her, helped her clear her mind enough to check into the present and stay there. Whatever was happening, they had to make it through this together. They had to be strong together.

“Carmela,” Lance started.

“You shot him,” Carmela whispered, eyes landing on the dead body of their neighbor in the study. “I swear I saw him fine this morning…”

“Carmela,” Lance said again, squeezing her shoulders. “Listen to me, okay? There’s something bad going on. We have to get out of here, okay? Do you understand me?”

Carmela sniffed, swallowing hard, but nodding. _We have to be strong. We have to make it together._ “Yeah.”

Headlights from outside cast shadows in the kitchen, flowing in from the windows outside. Lance let out a breath, straightening and putting his hand on Carmela’s back to usher her forward. “That’s Allura, c’mon.”

They walked outside, jogging down the porch stairs just as Allura slammed the driver’s door shut, leaving the car running and coming around to tackle them both in a hug.

“Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? Any idea what’s even going on out there?” She demanded, looking at them both.

“I’ve got some notion,” Lance said tersely, pointedly looking down at himself and back at her. She paled, stepping back to look at him.

“Fucking hell,” she gasped, hand over her mouth. “You’ve got blood all over you.”

“It’s not mine, let’s just go,” he said, ushering them back into the car. Allura backed out of their driveway, turning back the way she came.

“They’re saying half the city has gone insane,” she said, knuckles white as she gripped the steering wheel. “They wouldn’t let me in the hospital to see them,” she added, much quieter in the hopes that Carmela wouldn’t hear. But she heard nonetheless, and fear struck her heart as she remembered their neighbor Mr. Cooper. Was that what had happened to her family?

“There was a commotion with one of the patients,” Allura continued, her voice sounding thick in her throat. “One of them--he looked like--”

She cut off, exhaling sharply before clearing her throat. “I’ll tell you later.” She turned to look at Carmela over her shoulder, plastering on a small smile. “How are you holding up, _nena?_ ”

“I’m fine,” Carmela lied, two quiet words escaping her lips. “Can we listen to the radio?”

“Of course.” Her older sister reached for the knob, but all that was heard was silence; no static, nor a single word. “A damn minute ago they wouldn’t shut up,” Allura grumbled, settling back into her seat and glaring out the window. “They said it’s some kind of parasite. The army’s setting up roadblocks. No getting into Travis Country.”

“Which means we need to get the hell out,” Lance said. “Take 71.”

“On it.”

They drove in a few minutes of silence, listening to the sound of sirens and watching red and blue lights dash by in the distance. Carmela bit her lip, taking in deep breaths to steady the quivering of her hands.

“Did--” She cleared the croaks out of her throat. “Did they say how many are dead?”

“Probably a lot,” Allura muttered, almost as if to herself. “On the way here, I found this one family mangled on the front of--”

“Allura,” Lance snapped, breaking Allura’s spoken thoughts. She snapped her mouth shut with an audible clack, shaking her head.

“Sorry.”

“How did this happen?” He asked; he ran his hands through his hair, and his leg bounced uncontrollably, unable to keep still with all his pent-up energy and anxiety.

“They’ve got no clue,” their older sister huffed. “But we aren’t the only ones. First they were saying it was just the South. Now they’re talking about the East Coast, and the West Coast…”

She trailed off as they drove up and past a burning house, flames engulfing the structure from the inside, smoke billowing out the windows and the chimney. Carmela recognized the farm; a family friend lived there--or used to. They used to let her and her older Marco in the hospital ride their horses whenever they visited. Her heart ached, feeling heavy in her chest.

“Holy hell,” Allura whispered, glancing at the burning house in her rearview mirror as it disappeared behind them. “That’s Louis’ farm… I hope they all made it out.”

“I’m sure they did,” Lance said, voice just as hushed. His face was ashen in the mirror, visible for only a second before he smoothed out his expression, catching Carmela watching him in the back.

“Are we sick?” Carmela couldn’t help asking. She dreaded the answer, but her siblings put her at ease.

“No, of course not,” Lance said, turning to hold her hand in his. He gave her a gentle squeeze.

“How do you know?”

“They said it’s just people in the city, _nena_ ,” Allura chimed in. “We’re okay all the way out here.”

“Didn’t Mr. Cooper work in the city?” Carmela asked Lance. She saw Allura turn to Lance in confusion. He shot her a look, and she nodded, turning back to the road.

“Yeah, he did,” Lance confirmed, “But we’re fine, _chi_ _quitita._ Trust me.”

Another silence stretched on for a few minutes until a small group of people walking on the side of the road came into view. Lance sat up in his seat, looking at them.

“Let’s see what they need,” he murmured, beginning to lower his window to call out to them.

Allura slammed her hand on the lock button on her door, shooting him an incredulous look. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Close your window!”

“They’ve got a kid, Allura!”

“So do we, we’re not stopping!”

“But we have room!” Carmela chimed, and Allura merely glanced at her before shaking her head and driving past the family. Carmela turned to look out the window as they grew smaller in the distance, waving their hands and calling out to the car disappearing.

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen,” Allura said, shaking her head and tightening her grip on the wheel. “Someone else will come along.”

“We should’ve helped them,” Carmela whispered, and Allura turned to look at them both, looking back out the window every few seconds.

“I know you think that’s heartless, but right now your safety is my priority, okay?” She said, looking pointedly at Carmela before locking eyes with Lance. He too looked at Carmela before clenching his jaw and nodding. Allura blew out another breath and settled back into her seat.

An ambulance passed by on the other side of the highway just as they reached the light before the onramp for the freeway. Cars were at a standstill, spilling into the onramp and not moving, even as the lights changed. The sound of helicopter blades sounded through the car windows, and as Carmela straightened up to look outside, she could see red brakelights _far_ into the distance, with no sign of moving forward anytime soon.

“No, no, no,” Allura murmured, leaning forward. “This is bad! Everyone and their mother had the same damn idea. Shit…”

“Well,” Lance mused, voice tense, “We could just backtrack and try to--”

The driver of the car in front of them climbed out, yelling at the cars in front of them. “ _Hey what the fuck, man? Let’s go!”_

Everything in Carmela screamed about how much of a bad idea that was. And sure enough, a blue blur raced across the street and slammed into the driver, knocking him to the ground as he screamed in terror. The blur revealed itself to be a man in a hospital gown, with his face turned into the man’s neck.

As soon as the hospital patient slammed into the man, Lance turned to a frozen Allura, shouting at her to drive. “Allura. Allura! Turn us around right now!”

Snapping out of her stupor, Allura slammed the car into reverse and hightailed it back into the intersection, turning down into the streets. “Did you see that? What the fuck just happened? How did they get out of the hospital? How did they make it this far?”

Her frantic questions weren’t met with answers. Lance directed her as best as he could through his panic, up until they turned a corner full of people running in their direction. “No, no, no…” Lance murmured, looking for a way out.

“What are they running from?” Carmela asked, trying to find the source herself, but unable to among the throngs of people.

“Get us out of here,” Lance said, ignoring Carmela for the moment.

“I’m trying!” Allura snapped, leaning forward in her seat to steer carefully around the people running at them. She slammed on the breaks as one person ran right into their car, locking eyes with her through the windshield before running off with the masses. She idled in the crowd, looking for the best way to maneuver, the situation getting more helpless by the second.

“We can’t stop here, Allura.”

“I can’t fucking drive through them, Lance!”

“Back up then!”

“They’re behind me too!”

Suddenly Lance pointed ahead, towards a gap of less people coming. “There, there! Go!”

“Hold on!”

Allura pressed on the gas, and Carmela leaned towards the window, still desperately trying to find what these people were running from. They drove out into the middle of the street--

“Look out!” Carmela shouted. An oncoming truck hit their car, throwing them into a mess of shattered glass and bright headlights, pain and blinding light the last thing Carmela experienced before her world went black.

She couldn’t have been out for more than two minutes before everything came back into focus. The car was on its side now, broken glass everywhere, the smell of smoke in the air. Pain shot up her leg from her ankle, a dull throb until she chanced moving, a decision she regretted instantly with a hiss of pain. There was a heavy grunt of metal and the shifting of glass, bringing her attention to the front of the car where she caught sight of Lance’s still body in the passenger seat.

“Lance?” She called out. “Allura?”

Lance twitched, awakening with a groan. He stared straight ahead, where another patient in a blue hospital gown mauled the driver of the car that hit them, screams muffled inside the other car. It spurred him into action, urging her back to give him space as he brought up his leg and kicked the broken windshield as hard as he could. _Once. Twice. Three times_ \--and finally free. He climbed out first, grunting and groaning in pain until he was free, standing to take a breath--

A large body slammed into him, those feral grunts right in his ear. He grappled with the crazed man, desperately trying to keep the snapping jaws away from him, pushing and pushing him away--

“Lance!”

Allura smashed what appeared to be a brick into the attacker’s head, knocking him off of Lance and smashing it again, this time breaking the brick to pieces. The attacker lay still, bloodied by blood that didn’t belong to him, Lance was sure of it. Snapping himself out of his stupor, he turned back to Carmela in the car, reaching his hands in to help her out.

“I’m here, _nena_ , I’m here! Come on, give me your hand.”

He pulled her out by the forearms, catching her as she nearly crumpled to the ground, unable to stand. She cried out, clutching her older brother’s shoulders as he bent to see what was wrong.

“What is it? What hurts?”

“My leg,” she sniffed, unable to hold back the tears of pain. “It hurts really bad.”

Allura came to them then, looking panicked. “We’re going to have to run,” she said.

Lance bit his lip for a second before reaching into the waistband of his jeans and handing her the pistol he took from their father’s study. The thought of his father brought a pang of pain to his heart, but he shoved it aside to focus. “Keep us safe,” he gritted out, scooping Carmela up into his arms. “Hold on tight!”

They broke into a jog, weaving through the masses of people stampeding through the streets, avoiding fire and fights with infected people as they tried to find a way out, a way to safety.

“Lance, I’m scared,” Carmela cried out, the screams of a woman ringing loud behind them.

“Just keep your eyes on me, _chiquitita_!” Lance called back as he tried to keep up with Allura. Another car came down the intersection, swerving right into another building in a desperate attempt to avoid people. The car exploded in a gust of heat and fire, and Lance heard Carmela’s frightened scream in his chest, her shoulders shaking with sobs.

“Keep running!” Allura shouted in front of them, waving them forward and holding the gun in her hands steady. She looked as terrified as Lance felt.

“Those people are on fire,” Carmela babbled, eyes wide in horror at the chaos around them.

“Just keep looking at me, _nena_ ,” Lance commanded, tightening his grip on her. He tucked her head under his chin, hoping to shield her as much as he could from everything around them.

For a moment he panicked, unable to find Allura in the crowd of people running past him until he heard her call his name.

“This way!” She waved him towards her and he followed without hesitation, picking up his pace to avoid losing her again. The amount of cars crashing into buildings and people astounded him; he’d never seen so much fire, so much carnage in his life. “Through the alley!”

She threw open the gate for him and followed him inside, closing it behind them. Lance ran ahead, until an infected person pinned them against the wall, making him resort to carrying Carmela with one arm and fend off the infected with the other. Allura cried out and slammed it away, shooting it directly in the face with the pistol and looking back at Lance with a fierce, protective gaze. He scooped up their little sister and ran again, letting Allura lead this time.

“We’re almost there, Carmela, we’re almost there,” he assured her. The sound of rattling to their left caught his attention; a small horde of infected were breaking down the fence, coming right for them.

“They’re getting through the fence! Keep going, find a way out of here!” Allura shouted, pushing them in front of her as they drew nearer to an restaurant. She wrenched the door open and ushered them in, slamming it shut on the hands of the horde outside the door. She blocked it with her body, boots slipping slightly on the floorboards beneath her feet. “Get to the highway!” She grunted, fighting back against the limbs in the door crack.

“What?!” Lance cried, turning to look at her.

“Go! You’ve got Carmela!” They locked eyes, blue on blue, full of fear and love and desperation for the other to live, emotions mirrored and amplified by every pound on the door Allura was trying to hold shut. “I can outrun them!” She nodded firmly, a fierceness lighting up her eyes as she waved him away.

“Allura!” Carmela shouted, hand outstretched to her. Allura shot her a fierce smile, meant to reassure them both.

It was the hardest thing to do to turn away from his older sister and leave her to face the horde alone, but he knew he had no choice. Carmela was their priority; they had to keep her safe. He turned, eyes burning, head turned towards her as he began moving. “I will meet you there,” he announced, pinning her with a look that left no room for argument.

“Hurry!”

Lance crashed through the front door of the building, picking up the pace as he saw two more infected picking themselves up off the pavement, their interest falling on him and his sister as they ran past. He ran up the dirt path in front of them, the lights of a military camp at the end of the path spurring him faster, desperation feeding his adrenaline. Another infected beside the path joined the two chasing him, their snarls and growls growing louder and closer with every passing second. Blood rushed in his ears, his lungs burned, his legs burned, everything in him screamed to keep fighting, they were so close, _almost there--_

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The thump of three bodies hitting the floor sounded behind him; Lance curled out of his protective stance, chest heaving as he looked to the source of the gunshots.

A soldier stood before them, gun pointed towards them, the flashlight illuminating their faces. “It’s okay, _nena_ , we’re safe,” Lance murmured, relief flooding him as he straightened to walk towards the soldier. “Hey! We need help!”

“Stop!” The soldier shouted, raising his gun.

“Please!” Lance begged. “It’s my sister! I think her leg’s broken!”

 _“Stop right there!_ ”

Lance froze, heart stopping at the threatening shake of the assault rifle in his grip. He took a step back, looking down, trying not to escalate the tension. “Look, okay… we’re not sick.”

The flashlight and the gun lowered as the soldier spoke into his communication device at his shoulder. “Got a couple of civilians in the outer perimeter. Please advise.”

“Lance, what about Allura?” Carmela said quietly, eyes on the soldier’s every move.

“We’re gonna get you to safety and then go back for her, okay?” Lance assured her, eyes also tracking the soldier before them.  The soldier’s next words caused that same fear from the infected trickling back into his gut.

“Sir,” the soldier said, “there’s a little girl.”

Lance’s breathing became shallow, despair clawing up his throat.

“But…” A sigh. Then: “Yes, sir.”

Lance’s voice wobbled with emotion when he spoke. “Listen buddy, we’ve just been through hell,” he said. “Okay, we just need--”

He cut off, the soldier’s stance changing, gun raising and aimed right at them. Time seemed to freeze, and then catch up all too quickly as Lance cursed and turned to shield Carmela as the soldier fired at them, Lance’s legs giving out, Carmela’s scream ringing in his ears as she tumbled out of his grasp to the ground. His whole side felt like it was lit aflame, pain licking at his senses mercilessly. He had only been grazed, he could tell, but it still hurt like a bitch, his hand coming up slick and warm with his blood as the soldier came and towered over him, flashlight blinding his eyes.

There was no face for him to see, no eyes for him to meet. Just a faceless gasmask, his own terrified, helpless reflection looking back at him. “Please don’t,” Lance breathed, hand outstretched towards the soldier.

Another shot rang out, and the soldier crumpled to the ground, dead. Allura rushed towards them, kicking the soldier away and looking up to say something to Lance when her eyes caught sight of something behind Lance. Her face paled, eyes filled with anguish as she clapped a hand over her mouth, and Lance whipped around, all of his own pain forgotten the moment he laid eyes on Carmela’s crumpled form five feet away from him.

He scrambled over to her body, cradling her in his arms, breath stuttering in and out of his lungs in shock and agony, a sob ripping out of his throat as he caught sight of the blood blooming in a wide, dark patch on her shirt beneath her hands.

“Move your hands, _nena_ ,” he croaked, trying to keep his voice gentle and level, hoping she would be less scared.   Her whimpers were like knives stabbing his heart, her grip on his hands bruising as he gently pried hers off her wound and covered it with his own. His world was spinning on its head at the sight of his sister bleeding, wounded, on the ground; nothing made any sense anymore. She grunted in pain, sniffling and struggling to breathe, eyes looking into his, words unable to escape her lips. “I know, _bebe_ , I know--”

Allura was on her other side in the next instant, hand cradling her little sister’s head, shoulders heaving with sobs of her own.

“You’re gonna be okay, Carmela, you’re gonna be okay,” She sobbed, but it was clear she was trying to convince herself more than anything else.

“I know it hurts, _nena_ , but I need you to stay with me, okay? Stay with me,” Lance begged, tears blurring his eyes the faster they fell. All his baby sister could do was sob, small screams escaping as he and Allura tried to pick her up. “I’m gonna pick you up, okay? I’m sorry _bebe_ , I’m sorry, I know it hurts. Come on, _nena_ , please, I know, I’m sorry, I know--”

It was the silence that fell over them that killed him. The moment their baby sister’s whimpers, her breaths, her beating heart--stopped.

“C-Carmela…?”

Glassy brown eyes gazed blankly at the starry sky above them, unblinking and unseeing, never to see anything again.

“ _Nena,_ ” he whimpered, Allura’s heaving sobs filling up the silence. _“Mi chiquitita…_ ” He sniffed, bundling her closer, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “Don’t--don’t do this to me, Carmela. Don’t do this to us, _bebe_. Please, no no no, please…”

Finally the sobs escaped him, the pain too great for him to hold them back. Allura leaned in closer, circling her arms around her little siblings, desperately trying to hold them together as their whole world fell apart. They knew this was only the beginning.

The beginning of the end.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which fifteen years have passed and we see how our beloved Lancey Lance is doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh, hello everyone! Sorry this is up so late, depression kinda grabbed ahold of me and hit me with that writer's block for a while so I wasn't really doing much of anything in terms of writing for a bit. But someone was kind enough to leave a comment asking when I would have this chapter out so I made a promise to them to have it up by Friday--and surprise! It's a day early! I hope you enjoy it, please leave me a comment telling me your fave part or just if you liked it, I appreciate everything!! <333
> 
> Also, from now on there will be warnings of certain things that will be in the chapters for those who want a heads up. The universe of this fic is violent in nature, so... there's a lot. 
> 
> Warnings: Gun violence||Death||Death mentions||Physical violence||Injury/Injury mentions||

_“The number of confirmed deaths has passed two hundred. The Governor has called a state of emergency…”_

_“There were hundreds and hundreds of bodies lining the streets.”_

_“Panic spread worldwide after a leaked report from the World Health Organization showed that the latest vaccination tests have failed.”_

_“...with the bureaucrats out of power we can finally take the necessary steps to…”_

_“Los Angeles is now the latest city to be placed under martial law.”_

_“All residents are required to report to their designated quarantine--”_

_“Riots have continued for a third consecutive day, and winter rations are at an all time low.”_

_“A group calling themselves the Fireflies have claimed responsibilities for both attacks.”_

_“Their public charter calls for the return of all branches of government.”_

_“Demonstrations broke out following the execution of six more alleged Fireflies.”_

_“You can still rise with us. Remember, when you’re lost in the darkness... look for the light. Believe in the Fireflies.”_

 

_Fifteen Years Later…_

 

Clouded sunlight streamed through the window as Lance was awoken by the sound of someone pounding on the door. He startled, jerking awake, the lingering haze of a fading nightmare clinging to his consciousness, buzzing in his veins. The pounding continued, and with a grunt he stood up from his bare mattress to answer the door.

“I’m coming!” He grunted when it became annoyingly aggressive. He opened the door to the apartment to reveal his partner Plaxum on the other side, face peppered with small flecks of blood and a few bruises. His eyes widened, taken aback enough to not say anything as she pushed past him into their place, face sternly neutral, almost missing the scowl that took over his features.

“How was your morning?” She asked rhetorically, sitting on the small table in their kitchenette. She took the bottle of Jack left there and poured herself a glass, offering the other empty glass to him. “Want one?”

“No,” he grunted, but softened his voice, coming across much harsher than he’d intended. “No, I don’t… want one.” He grabbed a rag off the counter, dampening it with some water from their jug supply, needing something to do with his hands. Worry, anger, and hurt tightened in his chest, and there were words inside of him that wanted to come out, but he was afraid that once he opened up his words would spark a shouting match. And after worrying himself ragged last night over her storming out of their apartment into the town, that was the last thing he wanted.

His partner in crime sipped her drink in silence for a moment. “Well,” she started cautiously, “I have some interesting news for you.”

“Where were you, Plaxum?” Lance cut her off, knowing what she was doing. He wasn’t going to let her brush this off, not when she came back home bloodied and bruised.

She leveled him with a look. “West End District,” she said with a raised brow, frowning when he shook his head and scoffed. “Hey, we had a drop to make, remember?”

He pounced on the word, pointing a finger at her. “‘We.’ _We_ had a drop to make.” He held out the rag to her.

She took it with a sour expression. “Yeah, well, you wanted to be alone, remember?”

Lance rolled his eyes, turning to face away from her and running a hand over his face in frustration.

“So let me guess,” he drawled, turning back with his arms crossed. “The whole deal went south and the client made off with our pills, is that right?”

Plaxum scoffed, shooting him a glare. “Deal went off without a hitch,” she grumbled, rubbing at the cut on her cheekbone. “Enough ration cards to last us a couple of months--easy.” She tossed said cards beside her on the table.

Lance gestured to his face. “Wanna explain all of this, then?”

“I was on my way back and I got jumped by these two assholes, alright? Yeah, they got a couple of good hits in, but--look, I managed,” she insisted at Lance’s angry expression. They stared at each other in silence for a moment before they both softened, Lance’s worry for her outweighing his stubborn pettiness.

“Gimme that,” he said, coming and taking the rag from her hand. He tenderly took her chin in his hand, angling her face and gently cleaning her wound. “Are these _assholes_ still with us?” He asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.

Plaxum chuckled, a small grin on her face. “Now that’s funny,” she teased. Lance bit back a grin; there was no doubt in his mind that she more than managed herself well out there. There was a reason they were partners, a reason he didn’t run after her when she stormed out during their argument last night. Their history with each other ran deep, back to only three years after the infection had kicked the world to shit. Back when they were young and naive, learning the new rules of the world and learning each other and how to work together. Back then they were strangers who wanted to survive. Now, they were Plaxum and Lance, well-known smugglers and partners in crime, twelve years strong. They always made it together against the odds, with the craziest luck Lance had ever seen. They trusted each other with their lives, had saved each other’s asses more times than either of them could count. Plaxum and Lance; the two of them against the world.

“Who were they?”

“Who they were doesn’t matter,” Plaxum tsked, moving Lance’s hands away from her face. “What _matters_ … is that Iverson fucking sent them.”  

Lance paused, face incredulous. “ _Our_ Iverson?” He scowled at Plaxum’s answering nod.

“He knows we’re after him,” she said, standing up off the table to come around the counter across from Lance. “He figures he’s gonna get _us_ first.”

“That son of a bitch,” Lance cursed, throwing the rag on the counter in a huff. “He’s smart.”

Plaxum smirked then, looking for all the world like the cat that caught the canary. “No. Not smart enough.” She leaned closer, a feral grin on her face. “I know where he’s hiding.”

Lance scoffed immediately. “Yeah, right.”

She leaned back, spreading her arms in a shrug. “An old warehouse in Area Five,” she drawled. “Can’t say for how long though.”

Lance mirrored her grin, coming around the counter. “I’m ready now.”

“Oh, I can do now.”

  
  
  


The sky was grey with clouds telling of later rain, the smell of petrichor teasing their noses as they left their apartment determined to carry on their personal mission. A breeze flitted by, cooling Lance’s skin and making him appreciate the early morning crispness; he was in nothing but his usual boots, flannel, and jeans, but he always ran hot. The weather here was good for him, even if it helped paint their QZ as the lonely place it was. Lonely, cold, desolate… he was glad for the work he and Plaxum had because he was sure that without it he’d have blown his brains out years ago. Morbid as the thought was, it was true; the world they lived in was not a world for idleness. He was glad to have found something to live for, something to make him feel alive. And he sure as hell was glad to have Plaxum there by his side to do it.

They made their way through the streets, little bits of conversation floating around towards them from acquaintances they had around town. Although Plaxum and Lance weren’t exactly social or approachable, people seemed to know that getting on their good side was the way to go. People would say hi to them sometimes, made idle chatter with them from time to time, but for the most part they were ignored. Ignored, but _respected_ , their reputation preceding them even before they came to this QZ. Lance could barely remember a time when he would’ve been the first to go around and introduce himself, eager to make friends and meet new people--but that person was long gone, belonging to a past Lance would much rather never think about again.

“I got the papers in the morning,” a female voice said to his side. He and Plaxum slowed, recognizing the duo standing by a lamp post: a younger girl, mid twenties, and an older guy probably in mid thirties. Lance often saw them milling about the gates, always curious but smart enough to keep themselves under the military’s radar. Until now, he supposed, based on their conversation. “I’ve been selected for outside work duty.”

“What?” Her companion said incredulously, folding his arms. “That’s such crap. Soldiers are supposed to handle the outside.”

She chuckled humorlessly, catching sight of Plaxum and Lance passing by. “I’ll make sure to tell them that. What about you, Lance?” She jerked her chin in his direction. “You been summoned for this bullshit yet?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, continuing his slow walk to catch up with Plaxum.

The girl scoffed, nodding her head slowly. “Yeah… I bet.”

The smugglers continued on their way, passing the ration line. The line turned around the corner, all people looking impatient and fully resigned. From the look of it, Lance guessed it was another half-ration week, which meant more rations withheld for the military and people higher up with influence. _Yeah,_ Lance thought, _not much better than anywhere else we’ve been._

“Line’s looking long again,” Plaxum remarked to him, nudging him to walk faster. “Another half-ration week, I bet.” Her mouth twisted downward, displeased look behind her eye. “Let’s go.”

The Boston Quarantine Zone had been their home for a good five years now, one of their more permanent locations in all the time they’d been doing their smuggling for clients. It was one of the better ones they’d come across, though that didn’t mean much, if Lance was honest. It was just as lonely, just as dirty and cold and trashed as any of the others they’d lived in. They still withheld rations from citizens, still had military running rampant around without consequence, still had people disappearing from their homes only to be heard of again through gossip claiming they had been eliminated for Firefly association. People still showed up infected, sneaking in and getting caught only to be publicly executed in the streets.

Such a spectacle was happening now as Lance and Plaxum made their way to the military checkpoint, four people lined up on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, soldiers behind them with scanners checking for infection. From what Lance could tell they’d snuck out and back into the QZ, caught by soldiers running the perimeter. He snuck glances as they walked by, not wanting to garner attention.

“Got a live one,” one of the soldiers said, showing his partner the scanner in his hand. The person they’d scanned began to beg, squirming in the soldier’s grip.

“No, no, please! The scanner’s wrong, it’s _wrong!_ I’m not infected! Please, don’t!”

Her pleas fell on deaf ears, the soldier holding her taking out a syringe from his pocket and injecting the contents straight into her neck. They released her, watching her fall forward into a puddle on the ground and spasm as she choked, dying in seconds on the street before everyone outside. Lance grit his teeth, moving his eyes to the pavement before him. His hatred for unruly military burned in his veins; he breathed in deeply, struggling to stay calm.

“Fuck this!” The next person in the line scrambled to his feet, making a break for it--but he made it about two feet before he was shot in the back and killed by the soldier behind him. He joined his friend dead on the pavement, the others of the group looking shocked and anguished.

“Let this be yet another example,” one of the soldiers drawled, pointing with his gun to the dead bodies on the floor, “To stick to curfew and stay in the Zone! No sneaking out! Those who break the rules will be shot on site!”

“Hey!”

Lance jolted, the soldier closest to him fixing him with a glare. Said soldier looked younger than Lance, somewhere in his early twenties; the fact that he remained unbothered by the spectacle they’d all witnessed stirred unnervingly in Lance’s gut.

“Keep moving, civilian!” The young soldier barked, jerking his gun forward.

Lance set his jaw, chastising himself for getting distracted enough to stop. “Yes, sir,” he gritted out, walking briskly to where Plaxum waited for him up ahead. “Could’ve warned me,” he muttered to her when he caught up. They continued walking.

“Didn’t notice until he called you out,” she mumbled. She jerked her chin towards the gates far off in the distance, where military undoubtedly loitered and guarded, cargo trucks going in at the moment from what he could tell. “Checkpoint’s still open.”

“Only got a few hours until curfew,” Lance reminded her.

“We’d best hurry up then.”

They gates finally appeared, military personnel crawling all around it, a few civilians loitering about, most likely on their breaks. Two in particular waved at Lance to get his attention, beckoning him closer; he jogged away from Plaxum, who nodded her head in greeting towards their acquaintances but didn’t move to join them.

“Hey Lance,” one of them greeted, an older man with a tired face. “Did you hear what happened to Maryanne?”

Lance shook his head; he really only knew _of_ Maryanne, a mother of two who often took care of the parentless children in the Zone. She was always seen with at least five kids surrounding her, varying in age.

“Heard the military took her,” the other said. “Snatched her in the middle of the night from her house. Said she was a Firefly; can you believe that shit?”

“Careful,” the first man said, eyeing the military personnel warily. “Don’t wanna say that word too loud around here.” He turned to Lance, offering a half-smile. “Anyway, we just wanted to know if you knew. They’re really cracking down on people here. I don’t think they know about you and Plaxum still, amazing for a five-year run here. Be careful, yeah?”

Lance nodded, somewhat surprised. It wasn’t like they had any obligation or even a hint of a reason to care about him and Plaxum. Sure, they’d done some favors for payment for some of these people, but nothing more than that. Still… it made his hard heart warm ever so slightly, even after the slight fall in mood when they told him about Maryanne. “Will do.”

He joined Plaxum, committing himself to keep away from distractions. They approached the gates, Plaxum murmuring in a low voice. “I got us new info, so just play it cool.” She handed him two ID cards with their pictures on them to hand to the gatekeeper.

“Identification,” he demanded, looking them over when Lance handed them. “What’s your business here?”

“Got the day off,” Lance said. “Here to visit a friend.”

The soldier nodded, handing back their IDs and stepping aside. “Carry on through.”

They stepped forward as the gate slowly began to open, but a loud explosion beyond the gate shook the ground, making them duck as shrapnel flew everywhere around them. A sharp pain sliced across Lance’s forearm, burning and bringing a choked off hiss from him as he and Plaxum tried to make sense of the chaos. Shouts from soldiers surrounded them, words being tossed around as gunshots and smoke filled the air.

_“It’s the Fireflies! Everyone on field!”_

“Get out of here!” The soldier at the checkpoint shouted at them. “Go!”

“Come on!” Plaxum yelled, slapping a hand on his shoulder and running back the way they came. Lance followed without hesitation, running right on her heels into a familiar old building nearby. They scrambled inside, shutting the heavy door behind them before leaning against it to catch their breath. The building was something of a smuggler’s HQ--plenty of people in the business congregated here in between drops, usually to reload on supplies and weapons. Back in their earlier days at this QZ, before people truly saw for themselves the force that he and Plaxum were to reckon with, other smugglers--those who were cocky and arrogant enough to try--would tamper with or steal their things. People learned better when those smugglers would suddenly disappear, some lucky enough to reappear with a few broken tokens of their appreciation.

Unforgiving--but that was how you had to be in this world to survive. Lance hadn’t made it all this time by playing nice. Nobody ever did.

“Coast is clear,” Plaxum breathed beside him, hoisting herself up. She sighed, stretching the tension out of her neck. “So much for taking the easy route.” She turned to him, another complaint on her lips, but she caught sight of the wound on Lance’s arm, eyes widening in alarm. “Shit. Patch yourself up, here.”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a lump of rolled up gauze, tossing it to him. He unrolled it, wrapping the length of his wound with it a few times before securing the end of it. The wound stung a bit but he was unbothered for the most part; he’d had far worse before.

The blaring alarms from the soldiers outside grated on his nerves, angry and urgent, but also very annoying to him and Plaxum at the moment.

“They’re gonna close all the checkpoints,” Plaxum said, leading them down the hallway. She sounded as annoyed as he felt. “We’re gonna have to go around the outside.”

He could practically hear her eyes rolling in her head.  But then her words caught up to him. “Outside the wall?” He asked.

She gave him a look over her shoulder. “Or, we could just let Iverson  _go_ ,” she said, her tone making it very clear that they both knew the stupidity of that statement.

He scoffed at her, nudging her shoulder with his. “Cute,” he snarked playfully.

A fellow smuggler keeping watch at the end of the hallway caught sight of them, nodding to Lance as he spoke to Plaxum. “Hey Plax--you see that shit?”

“I was there,” Plaxum deadpanned. Most of their fellow smugglers found Plaxum much easier to talk to than Lance; back when they were just getting the hang of their partnership, as they were getting to know more about each other and their lives before the outbreak, they’d revealed that they were both the kind of people that got along with others and attracted attention. She used to be just as much of a people person as he was. Until a herd of infected got to her girlfriend and killed off the last person that had mattered to her. Talking to other people wasn’t a priority anymore, and at the time the only other person who understood that was Lance. They were a mean-mugging team that kept each other silent company and scared off approaching strangers with single looks. The first time they’d talked to each other they revealed their baggage. And they stuck together from then.

“How’s the east tunnel looking?”

“It’s clear,” the other smuggler said. “I just used it. No patrols. Where are you off to?”

She shot him small grin. “Gonna pay Iverson a visit.”

“You too?”

At this response, Plaxum pinned him with a frown, never stopping her brisk walk down the hall. “Who else is looking for him?”

The smuggler balked a little, but answered her question nonetheless. “Uh, Hira. She’s been asking around, trying to find him.”

Lance and Plaxum shared a look with each other. Hira was the current leader of the Fireflies, a resistance group that rebelled against the government controlling citizens all over the world. They’d been around since the beginning of the outbreak, rising quickly after hundreds of cities nationwide had been put under martial law. It was clear that some kind of resistance was needed when the military began making it clear who mattered and who didn’t, but Lance and Plaxum had never really trusted or wanted to join that crusade. In some ways the Fireflies were just like the military, just another kind of evil. Neither of them would benefit from it. The Fireflies were also about finding a cure to the infection, but if you asked either of them--they looked at it this way: it had already been fifteen years. Medical supplies and other needed resources would only dwindle with more passing time. If there were any hope for a cure, it had died long ago, just like the life of that cause. “Hira? What do the Fireflies need with Iverson?”

“You think she’d tell me?”

“Well, what did you tell her?” Her voice held a threatening edge.

“The truth. I got no idea where he’s hiding.” He held a gleam of respect in his eyes as he said this, and Lance was suddenly reminded of an old favor they’d done for him and his small family, a stack of ration cards they had needed to feed the extra mouths. He supposed now this was a small debt repaid.

“Good man,” Plaxum praised.

“Hey, you stay out of trouble, alright?” Lance told him with a meaningful look. “Military’s gonna be out in force soon.”

The smuggler nodded. “Yeah. See you around. Good luck.”

He jogged off into another door as they continued down the hallways, murmuring to each other.

“Hira looking for Iverson,” Plaxum mused. “What do you make of that?”

Lance answered honestly. “I don’t like it. We’d better find him before the Fireflies do.”

They kept walking without a word, finally coming into a larger studio-apartment-like room. A man sat on one of the sofas by the fireplace, keeping guard of the smuggler’s entrance to the basement beneath the structure. A few words exchanged with Plaxum and they were pushing the large cabinet away from the gaping hole in the wall and jumping through, landing lightly on their feet and flicking on the dim lights as they passed through.

“Let’s grab our gear,” she said as they came upon the section of the basement for storing smuggler supplies. Their backpacks sat just as they’d last left them on the work table, untouched. It was times like these that Lance was grateful for their reputation. He slid his handgun out of his backpack, checking the magazine for bullets.

“Not a lot of ammo,” he sighed.

“Well,” Plaxum said, zipping up her backpack, “make your shots count.”

“I always do.” It was one of the things he’d learned quickly in his early smuggling days. Not only was he more resilient than he’d ever given himself credit for, but he was also an incredibly good shot--summers of practice with his uncles and his father had trained him for this, unintentionally. He carefully avoided the thought as he walked over to the taller ledge near their storage room and braced himself with his knees bent, hands laced together as a step.

“Alright, Texas; boost me up,” Plaxum ordered, coming to place her foot in his hands.

“Yes, ma’am,” he teased, boosting her up; she clutched the ledge with her hands and pulled herself up, turning to offer him her hand.

“Here you go,” she said, clutching his hand in a steel grip; she pulled him up with a few grunts, the muscles in her arms flexing as she braced herself on the ledge with her other hand and pulled him until he gripped the ledge and helped himself the rest of the way up. He admired her crazy strength, remembering a time when he would’ve been all over her--but the world they lived in was not one suited for things like romance. It was barely a place for friendship or camaraderie. Attachment was one of the most dangerous things in this world, right next to infection and the infected. Despite this, Plaxum was still the most important person he had, his partner in crime. They’d made it this far, and although it was all through stupid luck, he had long ago thrown away the common sense that told him not to get too close. And from the smile she sent him and the squeeze she gave his hand before letting go, he knew she had done the same.

“You know, I only lived there for about five years,” he said as they continued down the catacomb-like maze. “If anything, you should call me Cuba or something.”

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” she dismissed playfully. “And it doesn’t get you all defensive like Texas does.”

They came to a hole covered by a broken table slab; Lance lifted it up for Plaxum to crawl through, waiting for her to lift it to allow him to do the same. They were now in a decrepit diner, old dirty booths and tables covered in grime and stains of unidentifiable substances. This was a place that once was full of life, now dead and left to rot like the bodies of its old patrons. They cut through it, walking through the door and into the outside--outside of the quarantine zone. The overgrown foliage was a welcome sight to the dull brick buildings Lance had gotten used to seeing after a few weeks of jobs in other places. He took a deep breath, letting his gaze wander a little bit.

“Haven’t been out here in a while,” he mused as they walked through the grass.

Plaxum nodded. “It’s like we’re on a date,” she teased, grinning at his over-exaggerated roll of his eyes. They both knew the incredulity of that statement.  

“Well, I am the romantic type,” Lance played along, sending her a smirk.

She snorted. “You’ve got your ways, I’m sure.”

They walked around old cars, overgrown with foliage and rust, making their way to a building with a gaping hole where there once was a brick wall. The ladder they usually used to reach it was missing, but Lance found it by one of the old cars, muttering to himself about one of the other smugglers forgetting to put it back in its usual spot. They climbed inside the building, looting rooms and cabinets as they went along, idly talking about their plans and shipments coming up in the future. Plaxum, who always liked to walk ahead, froze, a hand held up, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Hold up,” she cut. “Spores.”

They had their gas masks on in seconds, flashlights flickered on before they ventured any further. She was right, of course; wispy spores floated in the air, deadly as any other weapon this world had to offer. A small breath of this, and life as you knew it was over; that was how the infection typically spread, and it was the reason why it spread so damn fast in the beginning. It was airborne until the military figured out why and how to minimize it. Depending on the kind of infected, if the body was left alone for too long or was killed too early, the fungus growing inside of it would find a way to live on, growing out of the host and emitting spores to infect any other sorry son of a bitch that came along. It gave Lance chills as they walked along, paranoia crawling up his spine as he moved through the warm air and watched the spores move around him as he disturbed the stagnant atmosphere. It didn’t make any sense for all these spores to be here in the complex; it had been clear the last time they’d come through.

He voiced as much to Plaxum, who shrugged, eyes hard as she scanned each room with vigilance. “They’re coming outta something. Stay alert.”

He reached the connecting hole in the wall to the next room, crouching down to crawl through it. His flashlight picked up the glare of a reflective surface, and he followed it with his eyes, sighing in resignation at the sight. “Well,” he said as he came closer, “there’s our culprit.”

Before him was a dead body, newly infected but already crawling with overgrowth, a host killed off too soon. The fungus needed to live, after all.

Plaxum sighed behind him, eyes roaming over the body. “Body’s no that old. Better keep your eyes and ears open.”

More overgrowth littered corners of the room and abandoned objects, spores clinging to surfaces and continuing to grow. A small opening between abandoned furniture caught Lance’s attention, and he nudged Plaxum over to it.

“We should be able to fit through here,” he said, lifting a plank out of the way--but he cursed as a small avalanche of debris came crashing down on him blowing up dust and spores into the air around him. He threw his arms up protectively and backed away before he could get hurt, eyes following the source of the debris as the dust settled.

“You okay?” Plaxum called.

“Yeah,” he grunted. “Damn ceiling’s falling apart. Be careful.” He glanced around the same area, making sure nothing else would fall on them. “This way.” They shimmied through the furniture carefully, coming across to the other side without a problem. Lance went to take a step--

A hand gripped his ankle, followed by a raggedy cough, Lance’s heart nearly bursting out of his chest at the unexpected scare. “Jesus!” He yelped, reaching out for Plaxum to help her around the culprit. A man lay trapped under what looked like a slab of the ceiling and a metal cabinet, gas mask obscuring his face. But unlike Plaxum and Lance’s masks, this one had one of the lenses broken.

“Help me,” the man rasped, weakly struggling underneath the furniture crushing him. “My mask broke. Don’t… don’t leave me to turn. Please.”

He knew what the man was asking him to do. Plaxum turned to look at him, eyes giving him a look that said, _it’s your call._ Lance heaved a sigh, taking his handgun out of the waistband of his jeans. Ammo was limited, yes, but he didn’t have it in him to leave this poor bastard to suffer like this. Taking a second to aim, he pulled the trigger and shot the man in the head, all movement and noise ceasing instantly.

“Poor bastard,” Plaxum sighed, looking just as displeased as Lance felt. He himself remained silent; fifteen years will give so many opportunities for mercy kills like this. He’d done so many, but they never got any easier. Of course, it was much better than the alternative. Nobody wanted to turn into one of the infected. Who was he to let them?

He halted then, dropping into a crouch as he heard the tell-tale signs of more infected. Grunts, choked gurgles, harsh uneven breaths, moans and groans… These were newly infected people, just turned and regaining motor function and basic control. Nobody could really say which stages were the most dangerous; there were too many factors to accurately tell, and it wasn’t like anyone was trying to figure that out anymore. These were easy enough for Lance and Plaxum to kill, but they were already down one bullet; the rest had to be left for getting to Iverson, because it wasn’t gonna be an easy ride if the son of a bitch had any common sense.

“Up ahead,” Plaxum whispered. “Hear that?”

He gently shushed her, straining to hear; it sounded like four of them, and he gathered that there were two in the room ahead and two in another room. Sneaking around seemed like a plausible course of action. “Follow me,” he whispered back, and began the painstaking trek through the building.

He was right; two infected, newly turned, huddled in the corner farthest from them,  twitching and breathing in spurts and hitches, hunched in on themselves. They were especially fresh, still going through complete transformation and luckily too distracted by that to pay attention to their surroundings. He could see the stairs in the next room, their ticket out of there, but the grunts and moans were louder here. It was undoubtedly a living room, spacious and connected to a kitchen, and the two infected were in the kitchen area near the countertop. This posed more of a problem, as it was close to the stairs; Lance did his best to keep his footsteps light, remaining in a crouch. The second he stood up, they’d be on him, alerted to his presence, and that was the last thing he wanted. They were a little more aware of their surroundings, but still too distracted to notice him and Plaxum as they held their crouched positions and slowly climbed up the stairs. There were several rooms with their doors ajar; Plaxum nudged him, and he nodded. Might as well see what they could find.

Lance made a quick sweep of two rooms, finding a handwritten note on a desk in one of them. Scanning over it quickly, he realized it was left by one of the newly turned infected downstairs; they’d traveled far with intent to sneak into the QZ for shelter, but had been hit by a small horde of infected on the way. None of them had made it, and they’d been left to turn alone.

He met Plaxum in the last room, meeting her at the missing section of the wall.

“They got infected trying to sneak into the zone,” he told her, showing her the note.

She _tsked_. “As much as everyone complains about it, you got all these poor bastards wishing they were living on the inside.”   

They crouched over together and jumped outside, immediately removing their masks and taking in deep breaths of fresh air.

“Alright,” Plaxum said, “let’s head back into the city.”

Lance walked forward, avoiding the small ponds that had formed over the years, and removed a pallet covering yet another hole in the wall of a building. Holes in walls were an excellent system of traveling with minimal resistance for smugglers and nomads alike. It was like an unspoken rule that every building had to have several ways to get out; you never knew when you’d run into unwelcome opponents. Plaxum went in first, Lance following and putting the pallet back into place. Most of the buildings they went through looked the same, with small exceptions in their use; some were apartment complexes, full of rooms to loot, and others were restaurants, hotels, business offices, equally good to loot. It was the city, after all. So many of the buildings were falling apart, floors and ceilings viable to collapse at any moment; the floor they were on was collapse straight down the middle, forcing them to get creative and cross on a plank. Lance held it steady while Plaxum crossed, waiting for her to do the same while he crossed. They jogged onto the fire escape through a broken window, Plaxum letting her excitement push her faster than Lance. The bounce in her step--and the view outside--told him they were close.

“It’s clear!” She said after she’d scanned their surroundings in the alley they’d wound up in. “Let’s go!”

They hopped over concrete barricades and through several winding alleys behind multiple decrepit buildings until they finally reached their destination: the bottom level of an old law firm. The entered the room carefully, listening for signs of infected, proceeding to the door when none were found. Plaxum gave three knocks on the door and waited until the door was opened by a small boy on the other side. She seemed to soften ever so slightly, lips curling into a barely-there smile.

“Hey, little man,” she greeted him. She revealed a small stack of ration cards in her hand. “Make sure the coast is clear.” Before the boy could grab them, she snatched them back, face stern. “No soldiers. None of Iverson’s men. Got it?” The boy nodded and gratefully took the ration cards, closing the door. Lance leaned against the door jamb, watching the kid through the window as he scanned the area.

“You know he’s expecting us,” Lance drawled, raising a brow at Plaxum.

She crossed her arms and smirked. “Well, that’ll make it all the more interesting then, won’t it?” Lance couldn’t help but snort. The kid knocked a few times on the window, skittering away with his prize, and the two smugglers left the building and walked into the neighborhood.

It brought back memories, being in this place. Trash was scattered everywhere, and people huddled together or leaned against walls with relentless eyes standing watch of all the tents for living and selling things. Merchants tried to make a decent living selling junk they thought others might want, clothes and storage bags, and some tents held little fire pits, where people had rats skewered and roasting. He’d lived like this once for about half a year before he and Plaxum met and were able to make it into their first QZ. Twelve years together they’d stuck it out and there wasn’t a day he didn’t feel grateful that they’d found each other and helped each other out.

“Hey Plax!” A raggedy man who had been leaning against the wall near the neighborhood entrance jumped up and scrambled towards her. Lance instinctively took a step closer and glared at him. The man shied back a bit at Lance’s presence, but eagerly hounded her anyway. “How you doin’ pretty lady? Heard you had some merchandise, and I was wondering--”

“Not not, Terrance,” Plaxum deadpanned, continuing their brisk walk.

“No, no, no, it’s good, look--”

“ _Not. Now._ You hear me?” She nailed him with a look that dared him to test her patience.

He finally took the hint, backing away with his arms raised in peace. “Alright, alright, jeez…”

They walked through the merchant tents, ignoring the mean mugs they received--although all were welcome, smugglers usually weren’t trusted around merchandise, and Plaxum and Lance were very well-known, their presence somewhat of an omen. If they happened to cross a path, something was bound to follow them. A few of the tents caught his eye; one selling cooked rats, surrounded by a line, another selling what appeared to be junk, and one with a chain-link fence holding three dogs behind it.

“Sorry man,” the owner standing beside it said when he caught Lance’s eye. “These dogs are all accounted for. Sold out in less than an hour. Try me next week.”

He didn’t want to think about what those dogs were sold for. He walked ahead of Plaxum, wanting to leave this place as soon as possible, trekking through the maze of tents and crates to the back of a bus, where he could see a ring of kids surrounding two other kids throwing fists at each other in the middle. This was how kids in these parts taught themselves how to fight. Was it unconventional? Extremely. But did that stop them? No. Lance couldn’t stop the wince on his face as the smaller of the two was brought down by a strong right hook, the kids surrounding them cheering the other kid still standing. It left a sour taste in his mouth, watching them. They were so young; kids their ages should be in school, not beating the shit out of each other in the hopes that it’ll be enough to beat the shit out of a zombie and stay alive. In a perfect world, this would be nothing but a fucked up nightmare.

But this world was far from perfect.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A deep voice said, startling Lance out of his thoughts. He turned to come face-to-face with a man he hadn’t noticed sitting in the bus standing before him, looking like the last thing he wanted to do was let Lance through.His eyes held a deep-seated anger, all directed at Lance, and Lance couldn’t think for the life of him what the reason could be for it. Instinctively, Lance’s muscles tensed, anticipating a scuffle, but Plaxum’s voice cut through the tension like a knife.

“Malik,” she called, “Sit your ass back down.” Her tone was protective and biting, raising a red flag in Lance’s head.

“Oh, sorry Plaxum,” the guy said, all signs of aggression suddenly disappearing from everywhere but his eyes. Hurt registered in his eyes now as he looked at Lance, and what bizarrely appeared to be--longing? “Didn’t realize you two were together. Go ahead.”

Lance nodded, despite the confusing exchange. He didn’t recognize this guy--Malik--at all. At least, he didn’t remember. “Right. Thanks.”  Once they were out of the bus, Lance leaned lower to her level and muttered, “How do we know him?”

Plaxum gave him a weird look. Her expression went through a series of emotions--confusion, understanding, debate, and finally mischief. Lance was not reassured. “He’s an old headache of yours,” she dismissed with fake cheer. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You realize telling me not to worry about it is going to have the opposite effect, right?” Lance deadpanned, flicking her forehead when she merely gave him a lipless smile. She punched him back, laughing.

“We’ve got more important things to worry about right now,” she said as they came to a small tunnel guarded by two men. She walked over to one of them, interrupting his knife-cleaning as she pulled out a small stack of ration cards from her back pocket and held them up between their faces. “I’m looking for Iverson,” she said, all business, blunt and to the point. “He come through here?”

The man eyed the cards with interest. “Half hour ago,” he piped up immediately, eyes never leaving the cards. “He went back to the wharf. He’s there now.” He jerked his head behind him, finally meeting her eyes as he took the cards from her hand and went back to his knife. Together, they walked through the gate and into the middle of a few buildings, old street exits and passages blocked with debris and cargo crates of all sizes. Some cargo crates and barrels littered the area around them. Lance opened his mouth to comment on it when his attention was suddenly zeroed in on three men walking into the area from the opposite direction, clearly coming to meet them. They held handguns in their hands and sported grim looks, trying to look intimidating. There was little now, this far in the shitstorm of life, that intimidated Lance; at this point in life, he couldn’t afford that. The three thugs didn’t even phase him, the sight of them only filling him with minor annoyance.

Of course Iverson would send his people to come after them. The son of a bitch just couldn’t make things easy, could he?

“Here we go,” Lance muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes at the sky.

“Let us through,” Plaxum commanded, no room for argument.

“You guys need to turn around and head back if you know what’s good for you,” the front man said, voice loud in an attempt to seem bigger than he was. He stood at around five-foot-seven, an inch shorter than Plaxum, with dark skin a few shades darker than hers and his head shaved bald. Lance had a good five inches on him, and frankly a better fashion sense, too; those tight jeans and that giant jacket couldn’t be comfortable, but he supposed the apocalypse didn’t exactly allow comfort over necessity.

“Our beef isn’t with you,” Plaxum insisted, giving them a chance to walk away. “We just want Iverson.” She shook her head sternly once. “You don’t wanna do this.”

“Turn the fuck around and leave now!” The man boomed, tightening his grip on his gun.

“We’re not going anywhere without Iverson,” Lance interjected, voice low and lethal. The front man stood his ground, but the two behind him glanced at each other warily, eyeing the two smugglers nervously. They didn’t need to lose their lives over this; if they would just _listen_ and _leave…_

“Bitch, I will bash your skull unless you turn around and get your dumb ass outta here!” He emphasized his demands with a shake of his gun.

That was the last straw for both Lance and Plaxum. They shot each other a look before Plaxum turned back to the man. “Fuck this.” Quick as a whip, she aimed her gun and fired, shooting the man in the head before his two partners could do anything about it.

With startled exclamations, the other two dove for cover behind the crates strewn about, yelling obscenities and threats. Lance and Plaxum followed suit, diving behind a crate for cover. “I’ll take one, you take the other,” Plaxum rushed, peeking over the top of their crate.

A bullet whizzed their way, aim way off target. _Inexperienced,_ Lance observed as he quickly crawled behind another crate. _With guns and probably combat. Iverson sure knows how to pick them._ A quick peek around his crate told him they were both preoccupied with Plaxum, unaware of where he now was. With a quick breath, he clicked took aim and fired two consecutive shots, through both their heads. Their bodies collapsed with resounding thumps, and Plaxum stood up from her shelter, looking mildly irritated, pleased, and impressed all at once.

“I said I’d get the other one, show-off,” she complained playfully, her words lacking any real heat.

Lance shrugged, falling into step with her. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. They patted pockets and took what they found. “I had a shot and I took it.”

She took one last look at the bodies before turning to jog down the alley. “Hate to have to come to this sometimes. If Iverson’s good at one thing, it’s writing blank checks.” She shot Lance a smirk over her shoulder. “Let’s go put an end to that.”

They came to a locked gate, Plaxum pausing, but Lance just went over and bent into position, urging her forward with a shake of his laced fingers. “Come on, up you go.”

She went without complaint, turning to pull him up with relative ease. They navigated the maze of warehouse alleys quickly, coming to one of the older buildings beyond another fence with a hole in the bottom; old, blue, and rundown. They pushed through the hole, dropping down to the other side and taking cover quickly, just in time to avoid being seen by more of Iverson’s men. Words floated towards them with the salty breeze.

“How do you know they’re coming?”

“Fuck,” Lance cursed under his breath. Their cover was surely blown, and there went any chance that they could do this quickly without any of Iverson’s men on the lookout for their asses.

“Two of our guys died trying to take Plaxum out,” another voice answered. A peek over the crate showed that there were two walking out of the warehouse, one in black, the other in brown. At the second goon’s words, Plaxum just shrugged unapologetically. “I guarantee that she and Lance are on their way here, right now, to get Iverson.”

The goon in black gave a visible shudder. “Jesus. We shouldn’t have taken this job, man…”

The goon in brown scoffed, but his expression said he agreed with his partner’s words. “Not our call. Let’s spread out and make sure no one’s creeping around in here, yeah?”

With a nod, they did exactly that, Black Jacket walking back into the warehouse while Brown Jacket walked the perimeter. Plaxum shifted, eyes zeroed in on Brown Jacket while Black Jacket walked on unaware. With a glance, they nodded at each other and set off after their own targets. Plaxum took hers down without a struggle, hooking an arm around the man’s shoulder to hold him in place and stabbing him in the throat with a shiv, lowering his convulsing body to the ground. Lance crept soundlessly behind Black Jacket, getting closer and closer until he struck quick as a viper, thick arm circling Black Jacket’s neck while the other kept his head straight. The struggle was over in a minute as Lance squeezed, Black Jacket’s flailing limbs falling limply to the side. Lance hated this; killing brought him no joy, but it was a necessity for his job and his survival. In this world, it was him or them; he preferred to live to fight another day.

“Nicely done, Texas,” Plaxum praised briskly as he stepped back in line with her, all business to get to their target. They came up to the warehouse wall, beneath a window, listening to the sounds of conversation on the inside from more of Iverson’s men. Idle chatter about Firefly executions and soldiers running rampant in their tyranny.

The same routine was repeated, Lance choking one of them out, and Plaxum disposing of the other in her own way. She preferred quick and over with; Lance preferred the less bloody route. Clothes were hard to come by, and he didn’t exactly like the sight of blood on his hands anyway.

“Thank god you’re here,” Plaxum huffed, digging through drawers for supplies. “I’d hate to have to do this alone.”

Lance patted down the man he’d choked out, finding a key in his coat pocket. He met Plaxum’s gaze briefly, sending her a smile, before walking over to the door at the end of he hall leading to the rest of the warehouse, unlocking it and immediately ducking behind stacks of supplies resting on a forklift. Voices rang out immediately, someone giving orders and receiving several replies. Lance cursed, mirroring Plaxum’s annoyed look. Of course this place was crawling with Iverson’s workers; they only made sneaking quietly much harder than it had to be.

“Too many for us to sneak by,” Lance muttered, checking how much ammo he had in his gun left. “It’s not gonna be pretty.”

“When has it ever been?” Plaxum grumbled, rolling her eyes. “Let’s see how far we can go before the shootout begins.”

Stupid luck carried them through the warehouse without incidence. They made it to the other side, emerging onto the docks, imported goods being transported and loaded onto cargo ships going who knew where. From their hiding place behind a concrete ledge, they scanned their surroundings, both spotting a delightfully familiar figure talking to his employees.

“There’s our boy,” Lance said, anger simmering beneath his skin.

Iverson was a man standing at five-foot-eleven with one working eye and the other permanently shut from a scuffle way back in his early years. He was one of the biggest dealers out there in the black market, often enlisting the help of smugglers like Lance and Plaxum for drops that his usual men couldn’t make. This was how he’d become the biggest thorn in the duo’s side; he’d had the same attitude towards them that all the other cocky smugglers had had in the beginning, and gave them extremely difficult jobs with mean-spirited intentions. From danger to wild-goose chases, he’d put them through the wringer many times, but they’d never given him the satisfaction of admitting defeat. They found ways to accomplish the impossible and earned his respect--as well as his fear. They’d long since stopped tolerating his bullshit after a particularly close brush with death involving Plaxum and a metal rod pierced straight through her shoulder from an area he’d sent them to filled with explosives meant for infected. Lance had gotten Plaxum home safe, and then found Iverson and left him with an up-close and personal message of what he thought about the mission Iverson had sent them on, demanding not only their payment for the drop, but also ample medications and medical assistance for Plaxum. From then on his requested missions were more legitimate, and they thought things had gotten better--until he’d skirted payment for their last one, hence their reason for coming after his sorry ass.

Iverson and his lackey nodded at each other, parting ways. Plaxum _tsked_ beside Lance, eyes locked on their target’s retreating form. “That cocky son of a bitch,” she said, glaring.

Lance looked at her, expression equally fierce. “Let’s go wrap this up,” he said, and they quietly lept into action, landing silently on the opposite side of the ledge behind an empty storage crate. Lance surveyed the area with sharp eyes, taking note of people roaming about on patrol and working, mind working out the best strategy that would keep conflict to a minimum. “We gotta be smart about this,” he whispered. “Not a lot of ammo left and way too many people to go through with just us two in a gunfight. We gotta take them out quietly.”

They made their way through in a circle, starting from the rightmost side near the ocean; Lance choked out a few of them, collecting their supplies, and dragging their bodies out of sight. It would’ve worked perfectly--except Plaxum was spotted by an unnoticed employee, who alerted the remaining workers with a shout. They had to be resourceful for this, using debris like bricks and bottles laying about. Lance had just finished one off with a two-by-four he’d scored when he heard a shout that sent a strike of panic straight through his heart--

Plaxum was in a choke-hold, writhing with all she had, but the man holding her had biceps twice the size of Lance’s and hardly seemed bothered at all. Lance’s vision went red. In a flash, he was by her side, yelling out a warning to watch out before he clocked the man in the face with the two-by-four _once, twice, three times, but he was still moving--_

Finally, with one last hit, the man was still, two-by-four now broken in half with the force of Lance’s attack. Plaxum was coughing slightly, heaving breaths into her lungs and staring at the man in disgust. Lance came to her, gently inspecting her throat for injuries, sighing with relief when he found nothing serious. The fear-fueled adrenaline in his veins sent his pulse racing, that earlier anger returning tenfold as he gingerly lowered his best friend to the ground. His hands tightened into fists; Iverson would _hang_ for this.

“Take it easy, slow breaths,” he coaxed her gently, pushing her head between her knees to regulate her breathing. The sweat on her face glistened on her dark skin, her baby hairs sticking to her temples, the redness in her ears fading as her blood flow slowly returned to normal. He tried to talk her into taking a small breather, but she wouldn’t have it, sending him an annoyed look and pushing herself back up into a standing position. They walked in the direction they saw Iverson run off to, stopping at what appeared to be a small office.

“This must be where he ran off to,” Plaxum rasped, clearing her throat. “Let’s do this.”

Lance opened the door and entered what appeared to be an empty reception room, another door leading further into the building. He opened it to reveal just who he was looking for--Iverson, aiming a gun right at him.

“Get back! Get the fuck back!”

He dove out of the way, back against the wall by the door as a shot rang out, missing him completely. Plaxum slammed her back on the other side of the door, narrowly avoiding two shots aimed for her.

“We just wanna talk, Iverson,” she called out in the pause between shots.

“We got fuckin’ _nothin’_ to talk about!” Iverson yelled back, voice cracking with fear.

“Put your gun down!” Lance commanded, only to be met with another shot in his direction.

“Yeah?” One more shot, and then the tell-tale clicks of an empty gun. “Go fuck yourselves!” The gun flew through the doorway, landing on the floor, and the smuggler duo pounced into action, running into the office just in time to see Iverson run through the exit door to the left.

“He’s running!” Plaxum shouted, and they took off after him, following his tracks through the warehouse.

“Iverson!” Lance growled, pushing himself faster, Plaxum trailing behind.

“Screw you, Lance!” Came the terrified reply.

Lance was hyperfocused, not letting anything get in his way. He kicked down closed doors, jumped over trash cans thrown in his way in the alley they crossed through, everything passing in a blur until he jumped out a window into a gated alley.

A gated alley with a desperate Iverson shaking said gate with increasing vigor, panicked mutters dropping from his lips. Plaxum appeared in the window, jumping through it with all the predatory grace of a lioness who had her prey captured. Lance made his way to the other wall of the alley, both of them standing like guards keeping him from making it even half-way to the alley mouth. They walked towards him, eyes trained on their target.

Iverson gave up struggling against the gate, releasing a shaky sigh, still not turning to face them.

“Well, hello, Iverson,” Plaxum said, meeting Lance in the middle to stand beside him.

The business dealer gave a short chuckle, finally turning. No amount of calm acting could hide the fear and panic in his working eye. “Plaxum. Lance.” He took a few languid steps toward them, giving a small shrug. “No hard feelings, right?”

Plaxum gave him a fierce grin. “Oh, none at all,” she said, voice deceptively cheerful. Her eyes fell to a metal pipe on the ground, and she picked it up slowly as she too stepped forward.

Iverson gave her a deceptively pleased smile. “Alright…”

Lance could see his plan from a mile away; the dealer made a break for it, but he barely made it three steps before Plaxum swept him off his feet with a harsh hit to the shins with the metal rod, staring down at him in contempt as he cursed. He flipped to his side, holding onto his aching legs and looking up at her.

“We missed you,” she said, face clearly suggesting the opposite as she dropped the metal rod with a clang for emphasis.

“Look,” Iverson huffed, “Whatever it is you heard, it isn’t true, okay? I just want to say--”

“The guns,” Plaxum cut him off, mouth pressed into a stern line. “You wanna tell us where the guns are?”

He sighed, a sound that only served to annoy Lance further. “Y-yeah, sure, but… it’s complicated, alright?”

Plaxum met Lance’s eyes, raising a brow, trusting him to know what to do. “Hmm.”

He came around Iverson’s other side as the man on the ground talked. “Look, alright, just hear me out on this, I gotta--” That was all he managed to get out before he was met with a steel-toed boot to the face, courtesy Lance. No, Lance didn’t particularly like the violence that came with this life, but if someone dared hurt someone he cared about, he would make absolutely _sure_ the thought never even crossed their mind again. He would make them cry and suffer like the son of a bitch they were, until death was a plea on their lips.

He stood over Iverson and knelt at his side, grabbing hold of one arm at the elbow and wrist, applying pressure harder, harder, harder---

“Ah--stop, stop, _stop!_ ”

Lance complied, mouth twisted in loathing for the man in his grip, watching Plaxum kneel in front of him above Iverson’s head. “Quit your squirming,” Plaxum scoffed. “You were saying?”

Hesitation. And then: “I sold them.”

Shocked. Pissed. Disbelieving. All emotions mirrored in the faces of the smugglers as they looked up at each other and then back down to the dealer. “Excuse me?” Plaxum said, a dangerous edge to her voice.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Iverson grunted. “I owed someone.”

“You owed _us_ ,” Lance said, tightening his grip on Iverson’s arm and watching the other man wince. “I’d say you bet on the wrong horse there, buddy.”

“I-I just need more time, please, just give me a week!”

She just looked at him dispassionately. “You know, I might’ve done that if you hadn’t tried to _fucking kill me._ ”

The man let out a pathetic whine. “Come on, it wasn’t like that--”

“Who has our guns?” She growled.

A breath. Two breaths. “I can’t.”

They shot each other exasperated looks, and Lance didn’t even need prompting for what to do next. Just as Iverson’s next plea began, Lance snapped his arm, breaking it in half at the elbow. Iverson let out a guttural scream, choking it back, and gasping for breath through the pain. He rolled onto his side, cursing, blinking tearfully up at Plaxum and Lance as they kneeled over him.

“Who. Has. Our guns?” No room for negotiation in her voice.

It took him a few tries before he could speak without sobbing. “It’s the Fireflies,” he admitted. “I owed the Fireflies.”

His admission did not serve to make the situation any better for him. “What?” Plaxum bit out, glancing at Lance, who shook his head with a glare at the man on the ground.

“Look, they-they’re basically all dead. We can just go in there, finish them off. We get the guns; what do you say?”

He was met with silence as the smugglers shared a look, both of them standing and seemingly communicating through expressions alone. Their thoughts were in tandem, as they usually were, and Lance clenched his jaw and nodded at her to do what she would. He’d long since learned that there was no stopping her from doing what she wanted anyway.

Iverson was oblivious to this, continuing to run his mouth at them from the ground. “C’mon! Fuck those Fireflies. Let’s go get’em!”

Plaxum turned to look at Lance, both of their faces set in scowls. “That is a stupid idea.” Without another word, she turned and fired two shots straight through Iverson’s head, killing him instantly.

It wasn’t how Lance would have gone about it, as he was never one for that kind of bloodshed, but he wasn’t about to claim any kind of moral high-ground. This was a shitty world, and they were all shitty people; that’s just how it was now. That’s just how you survived, how you lived. There was a time when a death like this would’ve had him hurling on the ground, or sobbing later when he was alone--but he had come a long way from the person he used to be in that time. He barely even blinked at the pool of blood surrounding Iverson’s head.

Lance breathed a sigh, shaking his head and looking at Plaxum instead. “So what now?”

Plaxum bit her lip, staring at Iverson’s corpse, but not really seeing it. “We go get our merchandise back,” she said quietly.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” She broke her blank stare, pacing a few steps forward to look at Lance as she thought. “We--explain it to them or something.” She shook her head, shrugging and looking unconvinced by what she was saying, but still determined. “Look. Let’s go… find a Firefly.”

“You won’t have to look very far,” an unfamiliar voice called from the mouth of the alley way. Both smugglers turned, weapons drawn, to see a haggard woman with short hair leaning against the wall, one hand over her abdomen, the other clutching her own handgun. Her voice was unfamiliar, but her face was not--the dark brows, sharp cheekbones, straight nose, fair skin. It was the number one most-seen mugshot in every QZ Plaxum and Lance had ever gone to. This woman was Hira, leader of the Fireflies themselves.

“There you go,” Lance said with a sardonic smirk. He waved a hand at the woman in question. “ _Queen_ Firefly.”

“Why are you here?” Hira asked, face stern and giving away nothing. She already knew who they were. The leader of a resistance as big as hers had to know such people--all potential threats… and allies. Their reputation had preceded them once again.

“Business,” Plaxum answered breezily. She eyed the obvious wound on the other woman’s abdomen. “You’re not looking so hot.”

Hira glanced at her wound mutely before casting her glance around the area behind her. “Where’s Iverson?”

Wordlessly, Plaxum moved out of the way of Iverson’s corpse, revealing him to Hira. The resistance leader gave a tired, humorless laugh. “I needed him alive,” she sighed.

“The guns he gave you,” Plaxum drawled. “They weren’t his to sell. I want them back.”

“Doesn’t work like that, Plaxum,” Hira said sharply.

“The hell it doesn’t,” she retorted, standing her ground.

“I paid for those guns,” Hira emphasized, walking closer to them into the alley. “You want them back? You’re gonna have to earn them.”

Lance bit back a sigh; of course there was a price. He shared a look with Plaxum, catching the annoyance and resignation in her eyes. She turned back to Hira, gesturing slightly in agitation. “How many cards are we talking about here?”

Hira scoffed. “I don’t give a damn about ration cards.” She pinned the smugglers with a serious look. “I need something smuggled out of the city. You do that--I’ll give you your guns back. And then some.”

Lance stepped forward then, feeling Plaxum’s curiosity growing by the second. “How do we know you even have them?” He questioned, eyeing the other woman. He continued stepping forward, stopping right in front of her. “The way I hear it, the military’s been wiping you guys out.”

Something akin to pain and exhaustion flashed in her eyes before she lowered them and cast a glance behind her, avoiding his gaze. “You’re right about that,” she said quietly. Turning back to look at him, she gave a small nod. “I’ll show you the weapons.”

“ _Search the entire area, Firefly activity spotted,_ ” a voice from a nearby walkie-talkie said, much too close for comfort.

All three of them tensed, anticipation thick in the air.

“I gotta move,” Hira rushed, looking between the two. “What’s it gonna be?”

Lance jerked his head towards the Firefly, and Plaxum nodded, both smugglers following behind Hira, hot on her heels. “I wanna see those guns.”

“Follow me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed, please leave me a comment to give me motivation to write the next chapter soon, there's a lot in store for our lovely characters! Also how did you like Plaxum in this, hm? Or Hira? Or Lance as he is after 15 years of the apocalypse? I know he may seem OOC, but I'm trying to find a balance between his canon character personality and the personality of the character he is meant to be in this AU. I'm doing my best, but it's a little hard considering they're so so different. 
> 
> Anyway, you can find me on tumblr or any other social media p much @chyeahlex16 (main) or on tumblr with my vld specific blog @bi-ladin. Feel free to talk about whatever, I love talking to y'all. 
> 
> Take care! <3333


	3. Just Cargo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lance and Plaxum discover the cargo they're delivering, and a bonus fact about their cargo that makes things much more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm SO SORRY this took so long to get here, life got super busy and it all kinda slipped away from me, haha. But it's here! At 10K words, I hope that makes up for the wait lol 
> 
> Please let me know what you think in a comment! Happy reading!
> 
> Warnings: Gun violence||Death||Death mentions||Physical violence||

The adrenaline pumped quickly through Lance’s veins as he followed his companions through the temporarily empty alleyway, shouts from enemies echoing from the other side of the locked gate. He kept close behind Plaxum as she followed Hira’s lead, who was navigating the maze of brick buildings quickly despite her wound.

“Come on,” she said, glancing at the smugglers over her shoulder. “I know a way around this. She led them to a stack of cargo crates, pulling down a metal ladder and climbing up to the fire escape it was attached to. She didn’t stop to wait for them, climbing all the way to the top of the building and walking across the connected rooftops.

Without warning, an explosion father into the city went off, a black cloud of smoke and flames mushrooming from the site. Lance swore, eyeing the scene before turning his gaze to Hira. The older woman had her face turned towards the explosion, expression anguished for a second before she composed herself, face grim.

“Holy shit,” Plaxum said from behind Lance. “Is that your people?”

Hira heaved a curt sigh, turning from the scene and continuing with a rigid posture. “What’s left of them,” she said through gritted teeth. “Why do you think I’m turning to you guys?”

It didn’t sit well with Lance, that sentence. He mulled it over as he followed behind her into one of the buildings, quickly scavenging any salvageable materials. Why the sudden hostility from the military? Well, that was a rather stupid question--the hostility had always been there; there was nothing sudden about it. The better question was: why the sudden rampant Firefly activity? Why all this action after weeks and weeks of silence and caution on their part?

“So why now?” Lance asked, voicing his thoughts. “Why all of this?”

Hira gave him a glance. “We’ve been quiet. Been planning on leaving the city, but they need a scapegoat. They’ve been trying to rile us all up.”

She came to a large metal door blocking their way and pressed a hand and shoulder against it, keeping the other pressed against her side wound. She grunted as she tried to push it out of the way, but it didn’t budge. Lance moved to help her just as she opened her mouth to ask for his assistance. Together, they slid the door open with a loud screech of metal against metal, and walked through the doorway to the outside, emerging underneath a concrete bridge. They walked down a few steps and kept their eyes open for enemies crawling around as they made their way through.

“Hey,” Plaxum said, getting Hira’s attention. “How’re you holding up?”

Hira grimaced, swallowing visibly. “I’ll live,” she affirmed. She stopped with her back against a cargo crate, peering around the side carefully before holding up her free hand to stop them from moving further.

“Hold up,” she murmured. “Soldiers.” She jerked her chin in the soldiers’ direction, letting the smugglers get their own look at the situation. “That’s the way out; the door under the bridge.”

There were a few soldiers milling about, one of them guarding said door all the way at the other side of the underbridge. They were outgunned, outnumbered, and bound to get caught if they went at it their usual way. Lance’s eyes paid attention to every detail, working out as many plans as he could.

“I’m not a fan of these odds,” he murmured, eyeing Plaxum.

“We can sneak by them,” Hira said, and her mouth quirked into a sardonic smile. “Even though I know that’s not your style.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” Plaxum said, glancing at the scene again. “Let’s get moving.”

There was luckily enough cover for them to sneak into the sidelines, climbing up a set of stairs to get onto the surface level of the bridge and into one of the side structures. They ducked behind the sill of a window, peeking over the edge to catch a glimpse of what was going on.

Two men were bound and beaten in the middle of the bridge, surrounded by two soldiers standing over them. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the two men on the ground were Fireflies; even if it wasn’t obvious, the hitch in Hira’s breath would’ve been a dead giveaway.

“You picked the wrong day to fuck with us,” one of the soldiers sneered, shoving one of the Fireflies with a boot.

Said Firefly glared up at the soldier, spitting, “Go fuck yourselves.”

The tension and anger in Hira’s face told the smugglers what they already knew; there was nothing they could do, no way to intervene that wouldn’t end in bloodshed and the loss of all three of their lives. They had to keep moving if they wanted to escape.

“Go around and get the other soldier,” Hira whispered, shoving at Lance’s shoulder. “I’ve got this one.” She nodded at the soldier just outside of the window facing away from them, fire in her eyes.

Lance made his way silently through the building, over a blockade in the hall and directly behind a soldier in the doorway. Quick as a viper, he enclosed his arms around the soldier’s neck, dragging him down and squeezing as hard as he could, ignoring the choked sounds and flailing arms from the dying soldier. He released the lifeless body as soon as he was sure the soldier was dead, looking up in time to meet Hira’s eye as she released the body of the soldier she’d choked out beyond the window. She gave him a nod, and boosted herself over the blockade before her to move onto her next target. He did the same, snatching up another soldier and dragging the body out of sight before meeting Plaxum and Hira back inside the building just as two twin gunshots rang out. His eyes were drawn to Hira; she shut her eyes tight briefly, knuckles white around her gun, before releasing her breath and meeting his eyes. He could see what she was asking of him; he grabbed a nearby bottle and threw it outside the window to lure the soldiers their way and waited patiently for their opportunity.

They took care of the last three soldiers quickly and quietly, not wasting their limited bullets. Lance was just finishing off his soldier when Hira stood up from hers, wiping the knife she’d used to slit his throat on her pants. It was the same soldier who’d kicked one of the Fireflies; her eyes were dark with anger and slight satisfaction, but it diminished when she cast a glance over to the bodies in the middle of the bridge. She walked over to them briskly, the smugglers following behind, and she stopped a few feet away, sorrow in her expression as she stared.

“I knew these men,” she said quietly. “Thomas. And Roger. God… they didn’t deserve this.” Wordlessly, she reached down and took their dog tags from their necks, slipping them into her pocket. With a steadying breath, she nodded at Lance and Plaxum. “Let’s go.”

They walked down the stairwell to the underbridge and entered through the door quickly, scanning the room before hurriedly moving a set of lockers in front of the door to block it. Hira grunted with pain, hunching over for a few seconds.

Plaxum eyed her suspiciously, glancing around the room. There was nothing in here that Lance could see that he would think Hira would want them to smuggle. Just construction tools and large crates, wooden and metal, nothing of value. The sense of suspicion was starting to rise within him too; of course he didn’t trust her immediately. There was no such thing as being friends or even allies in a world like this. They had no reason to trust her, especially with the little information she’d given them thus far. He couldn’t afford to put anything past this woman.

“Where are we going, Hira?” Plaxum demanded, a warning in her voice.

The woman in question straightened, coughing slightly. “This way,” she gruffed, and began walking without proper explanation. “It’s not far now.”

The smugglers shared a look; Lance put two fingers to his eyes and pointed them to the Firefly’s retreating form meaningfully, following behind when Plaxum nodded at him.

“How you holding up?” Plaxum asked instead, eyeing the haggard woman.

Hira gave a shrug, answering honestly. “I’m running on fumes… but I’ll make it.”

They walked through the building and out of a doorway, emerging outside in another alleyway. Just as Hira pointed out their destination, the automated woman’s voice rang out through the speakers posted in the streets.

_“Attention: Curfew is now in full effect. Anyone caught outside without proper authorization will be arrested and prosecuted.”_

“Shit,” Plaxum cursed. “We’d better hurry.”

Not for the first time, questions ate at Lance, pestering him until he couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “What the hell are we smuggling?” He demanded as they meandered through empty paint cans and more junk.

Hira shot him a look over her shoulder. “I’ll show you.”

And damn if that wasn’t reassuring at all. Nonetheless, despite his growing irritation, he followed her up a set of wooden stairs, ignoring the drone of the message outside and keeping Plaxum close. They came into some sort of communal kitchen, thoroughly looted a long time ago and bare of any useful supplies. Hira came to a stop at the kitchen door, leaning against it as she stuck a shiv in the side to unlock it. The trip had taken a toll on her; he could see how weak she was as she leaned heavily against the door, unable to bust it open despite it being unlocked. She turned to him, nodding wordlessly at the door in a silent request for help. He placed his shoulder against it and pushed, door swinging open with a heavy creak.

Hira stumbled through the doorway, falling to the ground as her knees gave out, hand clutching at the wound in her side.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lance said, leaning down to help her up. “Come on now, get up, it’s okay.”

Hurried footsteps alerted him to another presence in the room, and he looked over his shoulder to see a young teen with wild brown hair and large glasses rushing towards him. “Get the fuck away from her!” The kid cried, raising a knife up to attack.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Plaxum quickly stepped between them, hand closing around the kid’s wrist and leveling them with a glare. The kid struggled in her grasp, Plaxum unrelenting until Hira spoke up.

“Let her go,” she told Plaxum as Lance gently helped her up and set her on a nearby crate. Plaxum did as she was told, pushing to make the girl stumble a few steps back.

Lance eyed her critically, quickly determining that she was not a threat before turning back to Hira. “You’re recruiting kind of young, aren’t you?” He muttered humorlessly.

Hira grunted. “She’s not one of mine.”

Said girl came around Lance to worriedly inspect the older woman. Her eyes zeroed in on the wound at Hira’s side, lips releasing a curse. “Shit. What happened?”

Hira shook her head. “Don’t worry, this is fixable. I got us help.” She nodded towards the smugglers, who were taking stock of the room and closing the door behind them, ensuring their safety. With a breath, she looked the young girl in the eye. “But I can’t come with you.”

Lance watched as the girl’s face crumpled briefly before she fixed Hira with a stubborn frown. “Well, then I’m staying.”

“Katie,” Hira admonished, voice leaving no room for argument, “We won’t get another shot at this.”

It dawned on Lance then. His brows knitted together and he stepped forward to gain their attention. “Hey--we’re smuggling her?”

Hira nodded. “There’s a crew of Fireflies that’ll meet you at the Capitol building.”

Plaxum scoffed incredulously. “That’s not exactly _close_ ,” she said, raising a brow at the Firefly leader.

“You’re _capable_ ,” Hira said with a glare. She turned back to Lance. “You hand her off, come back, and the weapons are yours. _Double_ what Iverson sold me.”

At the mention of the weapons, Plaxum’s gaze hardened. “Speaking of which, where are they?”

Silence. Then: “Back in our camp.”

Plaxum huffed out a harsh laugh, exchanging a look with Lance. He couldn’t say he was surprised at this outcome, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. She turned back to Hira with a fiery look. “We’re not smuggling _shit_ until I see them.”

Hira gave a tired nod. “You’ll follow me; you can verify the weapons, I can get patched up. But she’s not crossing to that part of town.” She pointed a finger at the girl, Katie, who watched this all in silence with narrowed, calculating eyes. “I want Lance to watch over her.”

Lance felt his stomach drop to his shoes, opening his mouth immediately to protest. “Whoa, whoa, I don’t think that’s the best idea--”

The girl in question spoke her own protests at the same time. “Bullshit! I’m not going anywhere with _him!_ ”

“Katie.” That same tone; no room for argument.

The girl huffed out a sigh, considering Lance and Plaxum for a second before stepping closer to talk in lower tones. “How do you know them?”

“I was close with his sister Allura. Said if I was ever in a jam, I could rely on him.”

The mention of his sister jolted through Lance like a shock of electricity, making him clench his fists and jaw. If she thought that would make him more complacent with this plan of hers, she was dead wrong.

“Was that before or after she left your little militia group?” Lance snarked, leveling her with an indifferent look.

She shot one back at him. “She left you too.” He refused to let that punch to the gut show on the outside. “She was a good woman.”

Sensing the building tension, Plaxum stepped in, shooting a quick glare Hira’s way before softening her expression to meet Lance’s eyes. “Look, just take her to the north tunnel and wait for me there.”

Lance rolled his eyes at the ceiling, intensely displeased. “Jesus Christ…”

“She’s just cargo, Lance,” Plaxum said, clapping him on the back.

“Hira…” Katie tried again, but she was quickly shot down.

“No more talking,” Hira shushed her. “You’ll be fine.” She stood up with a hushed grunt. “Now go with him.”

Lance gave his partner a sour look. “Don’t take long.” He turned to Katie with a stern look. “And you--stay close.” He walked off at a slower pace than usual, knowing better than to take off like he wanted to. As much as he hated the situation, hated being in charge of cargo so fragile, his instincts told him to take care with the situation. Whether those were smuggler instincts or other, he didn’t want to know.  “Let’s go.”

Katie shot Hira one last look before she jogged over to catch up to him, unaware of Hira’s lingering stare as they jogged out of sight.

The pair emerged in a small courtyard, signs of recent activity littered all over the place in the form of gun shells and corpses. Katie gave a low whistle, her eyes wide behind glasses that slid down her nose every few seconds.

“Whoa… I heard all the shooting but…” She bit her lip, eyeing a corpse as they jogged past. “What happened?”

Lance hummed for a moment. “The Fireflies,” he answered, gaze landing on one of said Fireflies leaned up against an old parking meter. He was dead, multiple bullet wounds littering his body, but his dog tag gleamed in the setting sun, calling his attention. Hoping it would be useful later, he took it, putting it in one of the pockets of his backpack. “Same thing is gonna happen to us if we don’t get out of here.”

Katie shrugged. “You’re the pro. I’m just following you.”

Lance bit back a sigh, unable to get rid of the lingering anxiety about the whole thing. There was a reason he stuck to himself most of the time when he wasn’t with Plaxum. He didn’t like to feel responsible for anyone other than himself or his partner. If something happened to anyone on his watch, he’d be shaken up for days on end, second-guessing his every move and causing even more problems. It had happened before, and he’d sworn to himself he’d never let it happen again. He refused to fail anyone like that again. It was also partly why he hated being around the kids of the Quarantine Zone, which was unfortunate for him because for some reason they loved him. Plaxum would tease him about it sometimes, but she knew when to stop; after all, she was the only one who knew where the fear stemmed from. He frowned to himself; now was not the time to think about his past.

He jogged across the courtyard, Katie following closely behind, following him down a set of concrete stairs to reach around the building towards the apartment building he was aiming for. They were dangerously close to the street; they had to crouch low to remain unseen behind the concrete barriers, watching as several Humvees made their rounds to start patrols. They made it around to the back, where Lance jogged over to an empty garage and began to haul out an old dumpster, grunting as he dragged and pushed it where he wanted it.

“Where are we going?” Katie asked, watching him uncertainly.

“Up there,” he grunted, pointing towards one of the many fire escapes in the small area between all the buildings. “That’ll get us to the north tunnel.”

He finally had the dumpster positioned underneath one of the ladders. Fifteen years of a zombie apocalypse had done quite a lot to his body; he was stronger than he was, no longer the lanky seventeen-year-old boy he used to be, body slightly fuller with lean muscle. He was no bodybuilder--nutrition was something of a luxury in this day and age--but he was glad for the slight bulk and strength he’d acquired over the years. It was a must-have in this world. He boosted himself up and onto the stairs, turning to wait a few seconds for Katie, and then jogged into the building, taking note of the lighter footsteps following him.

“This tunnel,” Katie said, and Lance resigned himself to the fact that he was stuck with a curious child who would undoubtedly ask many questions he wouldn’t be able to ignore. “You use it to smuggle things?”

“Yep.”

“Like… illegal things?”

Lance bit back a snort at her tone. “Sometimes.”

“You ever smuggle a person before?”

Lance paused, biting the inside of his lip. “No. That’s a first.” She was silent for a few seconds, long enough for Lance to bite the bullet on his own curiosity. “So what’s the deal with you and Hira anyway?”

Katie shrugged, eyes scanning her surroundings in innocent curiosity; it made Lance’s heart ache for reasons he refused to think about. “I don’t know. She’s my friend, I guess.”

Lance chuckled. “Your friend, huh? You’re friends with the leader of the Fireflies. What are you, like, twelve?”

The girl gave an indignant scoff at that, tone annoyed as she spoke. “She knew my mom,” she huffed. “And she’s been looking after me. And I’m _fourteen_ , not that that has anything to do with-- _anything_.”

Lance hummed, amused at her defensiveness, forgetting himself for a moment. “So where are your parents?” He asked before he could stop himself. He bit his lip for asking the insensitive question--it had been a while since he'd been around someone with whom he needed to be tactful around. Bluntness was the way of life here; no place for beating around the bush. It was something he'd taken a while to learn in the beginning. 

But Katie only sighed, and he saw her shrug out the corner of his eye.The sigh she gave was one he knew all too well, and one he regretted being the cause of. “Where are anyone’s parents?” She asked rhetorically. She kicked away fallen debris with a ratty sneaker. “They’ve been gone a long, long time.”

He nodded to himself, in silent agreement and a show of solidarity. She shrugged at him again, something he was starting to realize she seemed to do a lot.  A somber mood settled over them, itching on Lance's skin like a scratchy wool. “Hm. So instead of staying in school,” Lance mused, “You just decided to run off and join the Fireflies or something?”

At that she gave him a scowl, something fierce on such a young face. “Look, I’m not supposed to tell you why you’re smuggling me if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He embraced the hostility, latching onto the excuse to put up more walls between them. He wasn’t here to make friends or get along with her; this was strictly business. _Just cargo, Lance._ He gave her a blasé look, passive and indifferent. “You wanna know the best thing about my job?”

She raised a brow in response, glare still in place.

“I don’t have to know why. To be quite fucking honest with you, I could give two shits about whatever the hell you’re up to.”

She rolled her eyes with a sassiness that irked the shit out of him. “Well great.” Her voice was higher than normal, purposely chipper, as if she knew it would press one of his buttons. God, this was going to be such a long drop; barely an hour with her and she was already getting on his nerves, acting like such a brat. He couldn’t wait for Plaxum to get back so they could finish the job and get back home.

And yet, he found himself responding, ignoring the common sense that told him to keep his distance, stay behind his walls, be stoic and mature. The rise she got out of him was one he hadn’t felt in a long while, different from what he felt when he bantered with Plaxum. He couldn’t quite place it. “Good.”

They were silent as they walked through the next few hallways, Lance speeding up his pace as they got closer to their destination. He stopped in front of a nondescript door, the military lock long-since disabled and discarded, and walked in, gesturing Katie inside.

“This is it,” he said unceremoniously as he closed and locked the door behind them.  

She stood awkwardly to the side, biting her lip as she looked around with unabashed curiosity, unsure of what to do with herself. Lance, on the contrary, made himself comfortable, slipping off his backpack and using it as a pillow behind his head as he settled his body down on the old couch in the middle of the living room. He relaxed slightly with a long sigh, trying to get comfortable.

“What are you doing?” Katie asked, frowning at him.

He cracked one eye open, taking in her small form where she stood near the door. Her hair was short and wild, sticking up every which way where it wasn’t wrangled into the tiny ponytail she had, and her fragile frame made her almost birdlike, light and agile. She looked so much younger than she was, but her eyes held things behind them that someone her age should never have to see. The glasses didn’t help her case, too big for her small face, obviously not hers. He wondered briefly what the story was behind them--and then chastised himself for even caring.

“Killing time,” he said, closing his eyes again.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

It rang a bell in his head, that phrase, belonging to a person from a long time ago, a time he didn’t dare remember anymore. He pushed back the memories, huffing out, “I am sure you will figure that out.”

Silence. Then, an annoyed sigh, and he heard the hesitant shuffling of her feet against the hardwood floor as she walked across the room, slowing slightly as she passed by him. He could feel her gaze on him, but ignored it, until she said, “Your bracelet’s dirty.”

His eyes snapped open of their own accord, hand twitching as he glanced down at the bracelet in question. An unwelcome jab of pain hit his chest. The strings were frayed and stained with blood and God knew what other substances from the years of hardship that he’d gone through; it was dingy, so stained you couldn't even discern the colors anymore, but not once in the last fifteen years had he taken it off. It held strong, made with love. The ache ran through him, and he rubbed a hand over his wrist, rubbing a thumb along the braided texture of the bracelet for comfort. There was a moment of pure vulnerability, completely caught off-guard, and when he looked up from the bracelet, he found large brown eyes watching him; curious and calculating. He immediately schooled himself, scoffing uncaringly in response before readjusting on the couch and closing his eyes once more, willing himself to fall asleep.

He should’ve known better than to think his sleep would be at all restful or peaceful. Most of his dreams were nightmares; twisted memories from the past, before and after the outbreak, all the people he lost--all the people he’d failed to protect. There was one he regretted the most, one he could never bear to think about, a name falling like a desperate plea from his lips, _C--_

When he awoke with a start, momentarily disoriented by the sticky cobwebs of the lingering nightmare clinging to his mind, unable to remember where he was. It all came back to him within a second as he stared at the dark ceiling of the apartment, the sun long gone, rain pattering on the window. He breathed out a frustrated sigh, hating the way his heart raced in his chest. He took a few deep breaths, rubbing away the afterimages behind his eyelids.

“You mumble in your sleep.”

Lance bit back a groan at the sound of Katie’s voice. He sat up, choosing not to respond as he breathed in slowly to calm himself down. She sat in the armchair by the window, watching the rain streak down the windowpane with rapt interest. She turned to look at him when he didn't respond, corner of her mouth turned down sympathetically. “I hate bad dreams.” There was a hint of empathy in her voice.

“Yeah, me too.” Lance rubbed a hand across his face, struggling to push back the afterimages behind his eyelids, the various faces of the fallen he’d seen. One face was harder to eliminate than the rest, and it frustrated him--it hadn’t been such a struggle to not think of her before. Why now? Why was she plaguing him more than ever? What was wrong with him?

He turned to face her again, standing and slowly walking over to join her by the window. She glanced at him, hearing his footsteps, and looked back out. He took in her view, looking at the sky full of thick gray clouds, various buildings illuminated by military grade spotlights, lonely patrols down below in the streets watching for people out past curfew. She glanced back at him again.

“You know I’ve never been this close before.” At his raised brow, she nodded her head towards the window. “To the outside.” He watched her in silence as she looked out again, eyes wide in wonder, taking in everything with a curiosity he hadn’t seen in so long. He was filled with a dull ache and clouded confusion at that look, that hushed voice, for different reasons. She’d never been this close to the outside? What the hell did that mean? She was _just a kid._ A child, with nothing particularly special or outstanding about her. A kid that the leader of the Fireflies was risking so much for, was willing to give so much to him and Plaxum for, just to get her out of the city. _Why? She was just a kid._

“Look how dark it is,” she murmured, and he had to step away, those thoughts reeling in his mind as he passed a hand over his face to steady himself. His hand itched to do something, so he busied himself with lighting up the lantern on the mini-table by the couch, listening to Katie speak her thoughts aloud. “Can’t be any worse out there.” This was louder, addressed directly to him; he jolted at the naivete of those words, the same phrase repeating in his head. _She’s just a kid._

She seemed to notice his inner conflict somehow, standing from the loveseat to stand near him. Her expression was vulnerable, the feeling in his gut hitting him all over again. Anger at the world for being this way, for robbing her of the happy childhood she could have had; anger at the Fireflies for wanting to put her through even more bullshit instead of leaving her in the Zone to live a relatively peaceful life where she wouldn’t have to worry about what lay beyond the Zone walls, or the dangerous missions of the Fireflies. There was so much she should’ve been able to do, but she was caught up in something bigger, something that didn’t give any fucks about those things. He didn’t know what exactly she was needed for, but he was angry about it nonetheless.

“Can it?” She asked in a smaller voice. Lance stared into those round brown eyes.

_She’s just a kid._

He couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“What on earth do the Fireflies want with you?” He demanded, anger leaking into his gruff voice. Katie stiffened, jaw tightening, but before either of them could do anything else, the front door clicked open, Plaxum excitedly entering the apartment.

“Hey,” she greeted, nodding at them both. She shook her head, droplets of rain flicking off her thick hair, dampening her clothes and slicking her skin. “Sorry I took so long; soldiers are fuckin’ everywhere out there.”

“How’s Hira?” Katie asked immediately as Plaxum walked over to them.

“She’ll make it,” Plaxum assured her, and then turned to Lance with a satisfied glint in her eyes. “Saw the merchandise. It’s a _lot_.” She jerked her head towards Katie. “You wanna do this?”

Lance shook his head--not in answer to her question, but in response to the puppy-dog eyes she aimed at him. Plaxum had the emotional subtlety of a truck in neon colors and show lights when they weren't around clients or in danger. Lance say no to those pleading eyes and the promise of their much-needed weapons? With a sigh, he said, “Yeah.”

Plaxum nodded, rubbing her hands together before dropping all outward emotions with a nod, professional smuggler-mode initiating. “Let’s go.”

They set off at a brisk pace, Katie following close behind as they walked through the dark apartment. They stopped to check out the window, eyes tracking the slow drive of the Humvees down below on patrol.

“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that they’re having _us_ do their smuggling?” Lance murmured in Plaxum’s ear where he stood at her shoulder.

She gave him a shrug, stepping away from the window. “Hira wanted to do it herself. We weren’t exactly their first choice, or their second for that matter. She’s lost a lot of men; beggars can’t be choosers.”

He couldn’t argue with that. “Let’s just hope there’s someone alive to pay us.”

She waved him off. “Someone’ll be around, grumpy butt.”

They moved to the far wall connecting to the next apartment, moving a heavy bookshelf out of the way to reveal part of the wall knocked out, leading into the next apartment where the tunnel actually resided. They shimmied through, and Lance went through the motions, procedure practically second nature to him from all the times they’d done it. He fired up the generator they’d rigged up years ago, powering the makeshift ‘elevator’ that led down to the actual tunnel. The trio stepped onto the platform and stood still as it lowered them down, darkness growing around them.

“Who’s waiting for us at the drop off?” Lance asked.

“She said there’s some Fireflies that traveled all the way from another city,” Plaxum said over the sound of the generator. “Girl must be important.” She turned to look at the girl in question. “What _is_ the deal with you?” Katie jerked, startled at the direct addressment. “You some big-wig’s daughter or something?”

Katie sighed, an unreadable look passing over her face. “Something like that.” They reached the bottom level of the building and stepped off the platform, Lance and Plaxum flickering on their flashlights in the darkness. “How long is this all gonna take?”

“If everything goes as planned, we should get you to them in a few hours.” Plaxum turned to look the younger girl in the eye. “Katie--Katie, is it?”

She started to nod, but caught herself, hesitating. “Um, actually,” she said slowly, “It’s… Pidge.”

The smugglers shared a glance and small nods. “Alright, Pidge,” Plaxum said, and Lance didn’t miss the way Pidge’s shoulders seemed to relax at her name being accepted so easily. “Once we get out there, I need you to follow our lead and stay close.”

“Yeah,” Lance heard her say in a soft voice as he examined his map of the patrols outside the zone. “Of course.”

According to their map, the next patrol was fairly close, but if they stuck to the shadows and kept their eye out for the Humvee, they’d make it through unseen. He folded the map away and walked forward, Plaxum and Pidge following close behind. They crawled through the manmade crawlspace of a tunnel into the next opening, emerging into a small room with a ladder leading up and into the outside. At Plaxum’s demand, Lance climbed up the ladder and slid the slab of wood out of the way to peer out and check if the coast was clear. He stuck his head out and scanned the area, ducking back down slightly as he caught sight of moving flashlights ahead.

“Hold up,” he said. “There’s a patrol up ahead.” He waited silently, eyes trained on the soldiers up ahead by their military-grade spotlights until they walked out of sight. “Alright, we’re good. Come on up.” He climbed out himself first and then waited for them to climb out too, sliding the wood back over the hole into place. They stepped carefully out from the rubble and into the ditch, rain falling in a gentle shower onto their skin.

“Whoa,” he heard Pidge say in hushed awe. “I’m… outside.” Her face was turned up towards the rain, droplets sliding down her glasses as she walked. He pushed the surge of his earlier thoughts away, trying to focus on the task at hand.

“This rain won’t be doing us any favors,” he mused to Plaxum as they made their way through the ditch. “We’d better hurry the fuck up.”

They walked up to a fallen cargo trailer and crawled inside, Lance leading them. The soldiers had walked through this way too, but they were surely gone by now on their patrol. He emerged from the other side, peeking to his left and right, before stepping out--

And being on the receiving end of an assault rifle’s butt, letting out a pained cry as stars exploded on the left side of his vision. He fell to his knees, the soldier who’d hit him barking orders for him to stay on the ground, pointing her rifle at Plaxum and Pidge as they exited from behind him.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she muttered, voice muffled behind the gas mask she wore. Her flashlight beam was bright, highlighting the fear on Pidge’s face as she held her hands up. Lance could see the split second that Plaxum considered resisting, but annoyance flashed across her face as the first soldier’s partner appeared behind her, rifle digging into her shoulder.

“Move,” the second soldier said, voice deep and stern.

The first soldier ordered them on their knees beside Lance, who finally had his bearings back; she must not have hit him as hard as she should have, which he was grateful for. But irritation bubbled up inside of him at these soldiers for throwing such a huge wrench into their plans, at himself for not waiting longer for them to leave. Now they’d have to spend their time detained, and lose time for their drop, and who knew what the military was going to punish them with, the bastards.

“You scan them, I’ll call it in,” Soldier One said, stepping aside to do so.

“Alright,” her partner said, stepping out of the trailer. “Put your hands on your head,” he said to Plaxum. She kneeled on Lance’s right, Pidge on his left. He could hear Pidge’s breaths, quick and anxious, and felt that irritation again at himself for being careless and not avoiding this whole mess. Her first time outside and _this_ was what happened. A pit of guilt coiled in his gut.

Soldier Two pressed a scanner to the back of Plaxum’s neck; she turned her head slightly to look up at him, giving him a meaningful look. “Look the other way,” she said. “We can make it worth your while.”

The scanner gave two beeps, marking her clean. “Shut up,” Soldier Two muttered, moving onto Lance. He followed Plaxum’s example, lacing his fingers as he placed his hands on his head. The scanner gave him two beeps as well, and Soldier Two moved onto Pidge. It was then that Lance noticed her expression, one of absolute fear, her eyes shifting everywhere as the soldier pressed the scanner to the back of her neck. Every muscle in her small body was tense, and it clicked in his head _why_ just as she sprung into action.

“Sorry!” She cried before she whipped a switch knife out of her pocket and stabbed it into Soldier Two’s leg. He hunched over, and she jumped up to grab his gun but he recovered much quicker than she was prepared for, hitting her away with a jab to the face and aiming his gun on her. Pure instinct ran through Lance as he tackled the soldier away at the last possible second, the shot missing Pidge by miles, and they grappled on the floor until Lance gained the upperhand and shot a bullet through the soldier’s skull, two other shots ringing out behind him thanks to Plaxum.

“Oh, fuck,” Pidge said, staring at the bodies with mounting horror. She sat back against a crate on the ground, eyes flickering between the fallen soldiers as Plaxum and Lance dusted themselves off and took what ammunition they could. “I thought we were just gonna--tie them up or something.” She sounded breathless, voice high and shaking as she spoke.

Lance finally stood from Soldier Two’s body, giving her a nonplussed brow-raise, but turned to Plaxum in concern when he heard a soft, “Oh, shit,” from her. She looked serious, holding something in her hand; she tossed the object to him. “Look.”

He caught it, two things registering: one, it was the scanner; two, the screen was _red_ , one word displayed in bright red lettering. _INFECTED._ His blood turned to ice in his veins as he looked back up at Plaxum, mirroring her hard look with his own. His anger surged, the struggle to stay level-headed increasing in difficulty.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, glancing at a confused Pidge on the ground and back at his partner. He walked a few paces closer. “Hira set us up?”

She had no answers for him, seeming to struggle with words herself. Desperate for answers, he turned his anger on the current cause of it, Pidge staring back at him.

“Why the hell are we smuggling an _infected_ girl?”

Understanding dawned on her face then, along with panic and fear, and she shook her head emphatically. “I’m not infected,” she said quickly.

“No? Is this thing lying then?” Anger getting the best of him, he threw the scanner on the ground next to her.

She barely flinched, looking at the smugglers with pleading eyes. “I can explain--”

Plaxum stepped forward then. “You better explain fast,” she interrupted, adjusting her grip on her handgun meaningfully.

Pidge swallowed, but hurriedly rolled up the sleeve of her right arm, holding it up to them. “Look at this!”

Lance immediately dismissed it, looking away. “I don’t care how you got infected.”

“It’s _three weeks old._ ”

“No, everyone turns within two days, so you just stop your bullshitting right now,” Plaxum snapped.

But still, Pidge shook her head. “It’s three weeks, I swear!” She looked at the smugglers with desperation, begging them to believe her. “Why would she set you up?”

They both stared at the bite wound on her arm. It was a good question, one that Lance wished he had the answer to. One of many he wished he had the answers to, in fact. They all swirled in his head, and the longer he considered her words, the more evidence he could see. She should’ve been showing symptoms by now at least, could have very well turned while they were in the apartment just an hour ago. And yet here she was, as normal as could be, with bite marks on her arm that looked like… scars. Closed up from _time passed._ The bitten didn’t _have_ time. His father didn’t, nor his mother, or brother. Plaxum’s girlfriend hadn’t. It was _impossible_. She had to be lying. Some kind of trick, for reasons he couldn’t even fathom.

He saw the anguish in Plaxum’s eyes as she mulled over the same things, probably thought of the people she’d lost, the people she’d seen turn before her eyes. It was two days at most without fail; Pidge _had_ to be lying! Lance scoffed, but Plaxum stared hard, unmoving as Lance started a slight pace. He was a flurry of emotions, mostly anger and confusion. Anger and confusion at Hira--for deceiving them without any reason, for sending them this infected girl, for for now leaving them the responsibility of killing this child who wasn't even _fifteen_ yet-- Plaxum’s resolve seemed to be breaking, the gun trained on Pidge lowering, but Lance refused to believe it. 

“I don’t buy it,” he said through gritted teeth. He turned, mouth opening to say more, but the words were stolen from his mouth as he caught sight of a pair of Humvee headlights coming their way. “Oh, shit,” he cursed lowly, stepping back. “Plax… run. Run!”

He spun on his heel and sprinted back towards the ditch, hearing Plaxum shout for Pidge to follow after him. Despite his anger and mistrust, he found himself stopping at the edge of the ditch and tapping their backs as they jumped down, following behind just before the headlights shone where he’d been standing. He landed with a small grunt, the curses of the new soldiers behind him making his heart race as he lead the girls through the ditch in the shadows, staying out of the wandering spotlights of the military. They were aware of the trio now, alarms blaring to alert other soldiers and patrols in the area. This drop had gone from bad to shitty now, without a doubt.

“This way!” He said as they sprinted to their left. “To the sewer lines!”

They found themselves in another ditch, this one smelling worse than the last, with large pipes protruding from the sides at odd angles, slowing their sprinting pace to a crawl. Lance could hear Plaxum ordering Pidge to stay on his tail, and for good reason; he could hear the sound of car doors slamming, footsteps running all over the place above them, flashlights spiking the racing beat of his heart. His mind was a resounding stream of curses as he weighed their odds of making it through this shitty situation. It didn’t look even remotely good, but he wasn’t ready to say they were fucked just yet.

“Goddammit,” he muttered under his breath. “Their everywhere.”

They reached a circular tunnel, a small reprieve from the constant spotlights, and emerged in a slightly clearer area of the ditch, with less cover from above. Luckily the soldiers hadn’t reached that part yet and they quickly cleared it to what appeared to be the basement of a long-since demolished building. They hid behind a concrete wall, soldiers audible from the other side.

“Are you sure they came this way?” One called.

“Unless we’re told otherwise, we just keep scanning,” came the reply.

A spotlight drifted over in their direction, and Lance leaned back from the edge of the wall. “Just stay back,” he muttered to the girls, before quickly peeking around the corner. The soldiers were now turning to face the other way, giving them a small break. “Stay down, don’t let them see you.”

“Come on, kid, follow Lance,” Plaxum said, and without hesitation they took off to the opposite side of the ditch, ducking directly underneath one of the soldiers, and down the twist of the jagged ditch path, in the clear for the moment.

“How’s it looking?” He asked Plaxum.

“Clear back here,” she said. “How’s it look up ahead?”

He scanned the area ahead of them. No soldiers, and a way to get onto higher ground, probably the upper level of the building that used to be here. “So far so good,” he answered. They came to a building’s basement, opening up to the stairs it once had to move to the upper levels, and Lance led them through it, boosting himself up and over a few ledges until he was on what used to be the main floor. The building was so demolished it was no longer qualified to be called a building; it was all broken walls and no roof, with exposed piping and broken stair banisters to floors that no longer existed. Sounds from beyond the walls caught Lance’s attention, and he ducked behind a broken section of the banister to hide.

“I hear them up ahead,” he whispered to Pidge and Plaxum behind him.

“Op said they took out some of our boys,” one of the soldiers yelled.

“It’s gotta be those fucking Fireflies retaliating,” another voice replied, harsh and angry.

Lance tensed, ready to run out of the building, but a pair of flashlight beams illuminated the doorway ahead of them, stopping him in his tracks. “Shit,” he cursed. “Stay down, they’re looking in.”

He waited a few seconds, watching the flashlight beam as it swept through, until finally it moved in the other direction.

“Go, go, now!” Plaxum whisper-yelled, and as one unit, the three of them ran to the next section of the banister that wasn’t broken, taking immediate cover and holding their breaths anxiously.

The beam instantly came back into the building, flashing in the spot where they had been. Lance peered around their cover, holding his breath and counting the seconds in his head until the soldier _finally_ turned and began walking away.

“Fuck it!” He yelled, taking his flashlight with him. “Let the clickers get’em!”

He and his flashlight disappeared. Lance released the breath he was holding and began to move, climbing into the next building and the next, keeping his eye out for soldiers and making sure his companions were still on his heels. He stopped in what appeared to be a single-car garage with the metal door down, and he took hold of the chain to pull it open. The door creaked loudly despite his attempts to make it as slow and quiet as possible, and he grunted for Plaxum to hold it open to get Pidge through.

“Okay,” Plaxum said as she crawled to the other side. She stood, holding the garage door open for him with her hands. “Now you,” she grunted.

He quickly scuttled to the other side, taking her place and lowering the door to the ground. They were more exposed here, out in the streets, where Humvees called in from patrol shone giant flashlights through the windows of stores across the street and soldiers searched the decrepit buildings behind them on the opposite side. Unfortunately, that was where they needed to go. Luckily for them, however, none of the lights were trained in their direction, giving them a chance to make a break for it before they could be seen.

The trio sprinted into one of the buildings behind the patrol, taking quick cover in the miscellaneous furniture for a quick breath. He looked around, taking note of everything he could see around him. Six soldiers and their dancing flashlight beams on the ground, along with two Humvees; two soldiers in windows on the second floor of the building across the street with sniper rifles in their hands, their own flashlights roaming the street and peering into the windows of the buildings on Lance’s side of the street. Most of the soldiers on the ground were focused away from them; there was a chance they could run quickly through the buildings to make it to the end of the street and hopefully to the sewer entrance to be safe underground and find a better way to get to the Capitol Building. He halted at that thought; were they even going through with that now that they knew about Pidge’s infection? Or the seeming lack of one? He still had no idea what to think about that, nor did he currently have the time; one of the flashlight beams was getting too close for comfort now.

“Run straight across as fast as you can, alright?” He huffed to the other two. “Follow me. Now!”

He dashed across debris and through the crumbled brick walls, his steps as light as he could make them, the roaring of blood in his ears and the faint noises of his companions’ footsteps his soundtrack as he kept his eyes trained on the last building the soldiers were inspecting. His self-proclaimed finishline came in the form of an empty van; the doors were ripped off the hinges, allowing them to go through to the other side, out of the view and hearing range of the soldiers on their patrol. As much as he wanted to take a second to rest, Lance’s instincts kept him alert and on the move, eyes scanning their surroundings for the best course of action. The streets stretching ahead were empty, slick with the rain that clung to his skin and clothes and had him blinking when he didn’t shield his eyes. Luckily for him, the sewer entrance was right there.

It was less of an actual entrance and more of a--well, it was a large hole of destroyed building and road, a ditch that lead to the underground sewer tunnels that would get them to a safer part of town. Of course, ‘safer’ was a relative term; there was no place in the goddamn city that could be called ‘safe.’ It was always _something_ ; infected, soldiers, rebels… Safety was a luxury no one could afford. Lance shook his head to clear the thoughts away; he was on a mission. There was no time to overthink; the dangers ahead were ones he was all too familiar with.

“Are they gonna follow us down here?” Pidge asked as they trudged through the water-filled path. It soaked her jeans above the knee, reaching the middle of Lance’s and Plaxum’s calves. She sounded tentative, as if she wasn’t sure she could even talk to Lance. Now, with hindsight at his disposal, he couldn’t blame her when he’d acted like that. He wasn’t about to blame himself either, though; he _still_ wasn’t sure what to think. And with the soldiers so close, this wasn’t the time or place to sit and talk it through. They just had to keep pushing until they found a place safe enough to do so.

“We aren’t sticking around to find out,” he replied, tense, but Plaxum came and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“That was too damn close, Plax,” he huffed, ripping his eyes away from her gaze. He quickened his pace, and he could feel her uncertainty in her steps as she sped up to stick by his side. Begrudgingly, he released a breath and cast a glance on his other side at a nearly jogging Pidge, who returned the look with a bewildered expression at the sudden attention. “You better be worth it, kid.”

He felt Plaxum squeeze his hand briefly. He refused to look at her, feeling the slightest edge of pettiness in his chest. She shoved his shoulder slightly, rolling her eyes.

“You’re pouting,” she murmured, a smile in her voice but not on her face. She raised a brow at him, but he only pouted harder at her words.

“Shut up,” he told her, shoving her back. “We’re on a mission and we need to focus.”

They came up to dead-end, but there was a tunnel to their right that seemed to lead further underground. He wasn’t familiar with these parts of the city before the sewers, but there weren’t really any other options here for them.

“Let’s see where this leads.” He took the front, crawling through the tunnel and flickering on his flashlight to illuminate the path. It was only a short distance before the tunnel opened up into a familiar small room with piping and equipment inside, only illuminated by their flashlights as they searched for supplies.

“Yeah, this looks right,” Plaxum murmured. “Stay close…”

“At least we’re out of the rain,” Lance muttered to himself as he found the small hole in the wall he was looking for. He crouched through and waited for Plaxum and Pidge to emerge on the other side. The ceiling was destroyed, leaving them vulnerable to eyes from above. And eyes there were--Lance dropped to a low crouch near the left wall in the shadows as he heard voices, waving his arms to get the other two to follow suit.

“Break off pursuit and report back to Sector Eleven,” one of the voices said.

“Stick to the shadows,” Lance whispered, beginning the creep to the other side where the tunnel continued with the ceiling intact.

“Acknowledged,” the other voice replied. “Back to your vehicles! Now!”

They made it across the way without being spotted, walking through the rooms around them to look for supplies. He was rummaging through a desk and some lockers when Pidge spoke again.

“Are we safe?” She asked.

“No,” Plaxum answered before he could. “They’re still around. Take a moment to catch your breath. Lance, come help me look through the rest of these lockers.”

“Sure thing, Boss,” he quipped in a huff as he went to do as he was told. They searched in silence, Lance biting his tongue the whole time. It wasn’t time to talk yet. She was right; they weren’t safe yet. _Just a little further…_

They finished searching for supplies quickly, and Lance jogged ahead to find their exit route, finding it in another tunnel pipe up ahead. He called the girls over and led them through it, briefly emerging in waist-deep water where he could hear the rumble of the Humvees directly above them. His pulse sped up slightly, but they weren’t visible from above. The tunnel continued for a few more feet, ending with a rusted gate door that opened with a quick push.

They emerged in the underpass of the freeway, rusted cars filling the ditch and surrounded by water. The highway above them wasn’t any better, trucks and trailers blocking the way and extremely abused by time and weather. Lance ushered Pidge and Plaxum out of the sewer before he closed the gate behind them, leaning against it for only a second before he spun around to face Plaxum.

But she was already doing what he wanted to do; she kneeled down beside a sitting Pidge, fixing the younger girl with an imploring look. Pidge, caught off-guard, started and could only stare back with wariness.

“Look,” Plaxum began. “What was the plan? Let’s say that we deliver you to the Fireflies; what then?”

Pidge glanced between the two smugglers uncertainty. “Hira… she said that they have their own little quarantine zone with doctors there still trying to find a cure.”

Lance scoffed, turning to look at them over his shoulder. “Yeah, we’ve heard that before, haven’t we, Plaxum?”

They’d heard it many times; all rumors about the Fireflies and other organizations trying to find a cure to the infection that took down the whole damn world. They were never true, not a single one in all fifteen years that they’d been at it. Lance wasn’t a cynic by nature, but there was just no easy way for him to believe that this time a cure was possible. But…

Pidge frowned at him, looking back at Plaxum, but her eyes still flicked back to Lance. “And that whatever happened to me is… the key to finding a vaccine.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Lance muttered, rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“It’s what she said,” Pidge said defensively.

Lance turned around to face her fully. “Oh, I’m sure she did.”

Pidge stood up, glaring at him. “Hey, fuck you, man! I didn’t ask for this!”

He barely glanced at her, his eyes fixed on a still-kneeling Plaxum, frozen in thought. He wasn’t sure what to make of that expression on her face. He could see the wheels in her head turning. “Me neither,” he spat, brushing past her to stand before Plaxum as she slowly rose to look at him. “Plax, what the hell are we doing here?”

“What if it’s true?” She asked him, jaw set. His jaw dropped then, incredulousness taking over. “What if, Lance?”

“I can’t believe you’re buying this shit,” Lance said, running a hand through his damp hair as he shook his head in shock. Plaxum, who had always taken the piss out on every rumor they’d come across, who had always denied and believed in her heart that there would ever be a cure, was actually _listening_ and _believing_ this shit?

“We’ve already come this far, let’s just finish it,” she reasoned. Her expression looked pleading in the darkness and it was clear by the look in her eyes that she wanted to do just that. But there was so much risk involved, too much uncertainty, and he _hated_ it. He hated the thought of all the possible ways this could all go wrong.  

He took her by the arm and walked them a few steps from Pidge, pointing towards the city they’d be crossing. “Do I need to remind you what is out there?” He demanded; the fear he’d been trying to hide came forth in a slight tremor in his voice. But still, her expression never changed.

Lance had been through a lot in the last fifteen years. It had taught him a lot about hardship and the tough decisions one had to make to survive in this world. He’d had a lot of practice with making those tough decisions, with putting his foot down no matter what was at stake. And yet, in all that time, he _still_ hadn’t quite learned how to say no when it came to Plaxum. He could feel his resolve crumbling as she pinned him with that _look_ as they stared each other down. There was a lot in that look that wasn’t being spoken out loud, something that he could only _understand_ on a level that couldn’t be brought into words. They’d lost so many people to this wretched disease, had watched so many other people suffer. Here was a chance, as small and unlikely as it was, to potentially put an end to that suffering and save future generations from experiencing the same thing. This was what made this particular time so different; the answer was here, tangible, in their hands. He knew this, he _felt_ this. Her pain, her hopes, her fear… And despite his own pain, hopes, and fears, despite his desire to keep her and Pidge safe... How could he say no when he understood?

There was so much at stake here. So much danger and harm that could come their way, that could come Plaxum and _Pidge’s_ way. If anything happened to either of them… he wouldn’t ever forgive himself. He glanced at Pidge, took in her small stature, her rain-dampened hair, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, the way she held herself like a bird ready to take flight, the way she fixed him with that innocent, curious stare… No, he would never forgive himself. But he trusted Plaxum with his life. He had to trust her here too. He met her eyes again.

Just when he was about to open his mouth to speak, something dawned in her eyes, having caught his look at Pidge, changing her expression completely as if she’d just figured something out. She turned to look at Pidge, who was watching them with a tense expression; Pidge, who was the walking cure to the very disease that brought the whole world to its knees. Pidge, who was just a fourteen-year-old kid, who’d never even gone outside of a quarantine zone before today. Pidge, who was small and vulnerable and way too fucking familiar for Lance to deal with. Plaxum looked back at Lance. “I get it,” she said.  It felt like a punch to Lance’s gut; after knowing her for the last twelve years, he didn’t doubt that she _did_ get it, even if he refused acknowledge it himself. She just _knew_. “I really do.”

Without another word, she walked away, starting the trek into the city. Pidge, with another wary look at Lance, followed behind her uncertainly, throwing small glances over her shoulder at him as he stood unmoving. And Lance, bottling up his emotions and pushing away the lingering memories, released a long, shuddering breath, and then jogged to catch up and lead the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!! I hope you enjoyed it, please leave a comment of your fave part or anything you enjoyed, literally anything is appreciated! But please let me know what you think, it was a bit of a struggle to get this one out of me and I'm kinda eh about it, so I'm eager for your thoughts and feedback, I really hope u liked it. 
> 
> Don't forget to hmu on my socials too, you can find me at @chyeahlex16 on p much anything except twitter, I haven't gotten around to changing that one yet lol 
> 
> But anyways, thanks again for reading! Take care! <3333

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! Please leave a comment if you did! You can follow me on tumblr @chyeahlex16 (main) or @bi-ladin (VLD specific) and chat, I love to talk so hmu <3
> 
> This will be slow-updating, but I promise it WILL be finished, no worries. I'm super excited to keep working on this, so please leave comments so I know people are reading it and actually like it lol, I'd really appreciate it <33
> 
> Take care! <333


End file.
